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   I wonder if we can expand on the discussion today and yesterday about
   the recent drop in the numbers of shipments of topos and other materials
   from USGS, particularly for the benefit of those not directly in the
   line of fire (or far away)? I believe we also had a message in the last
   fortnight or so with a possible explanation, and hopefully our friends
   at USGS can help us.
 
   Is it government cut-backs, distribution problems, or are we reaching the
   point now where topo maps for the entire country have been produced? About
   three years ago I remember Gary North (now-retired liason between USGS and
   the map library community) happily announcing that mapping of the United
   States had finally been completed, some hundred years after it was begun.
   He was talking about the original surveying, but it follows that sooner or
   later the products of that surveying would also be completed. Is this
   what's happened?
 
   Of course, there are still the questions of new editions, photorevisions
   and photoinspections (pardon my references to the 'old' technology
   --paper). But that brings us to that old saw--will 'new' maps be
   produced digitally rather than on paper, only on demand, what?
 
   Perhaps we should confine our discussion to the standard 7 1/2-minute
   topographic sheets. Will there be at least one paper map for everywhere
   (and will the last of them be arriving at your local depository library
   soon?), with the format of future editions yet to be discovered? Does
   that mean thirteen editions of the Central Park quad and one provisional
   of some poor stretch of desert in Nevada?
 
   Sorry, but I'm not interested in making a speech on the evils of
   computer technology, just wondering if we can sort out the status of
   paper map distribution right now.
 
   Thanks.
 
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   April Carlucci                                  [log in to unmask]
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