----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Thanks, Pat, for your comments. I am enjoying the give and take on
this, except for the flaming and the sarcasm. Lighten up folks! I have
printed out all this discussion so far, except what came up this a.m.,
and I plan to sit down and mull over it on my 3 hour weekend, Sunday
afternoon...A glass of Jack should help make all things clear, don't
you think?
Once again, MAPS-L, & MapHist, have come through, and the wired
community has added immensely to my own understanding of the issues we
are each struggling with locally.
My preference is to wallow in the Blaeus and Sanborns. Yes, the hard
copy, the paper copy, the original stuff.
Horrifying, I know. But, still, even at my age, I am caught by the
potential of the new technologies, and how they can help make images of
those Blaeus and Sanborns accessible, beyond the walls of the library.
A danger here, is an assumption, that these digital images will be an
acceptible
substitute for the originals. A digitized image will never substitute
for the look, feel, smell, sound [as you turn the pages, and crack
the vellum, opening the damn things] the aura, of the original. That
aura, to me, is what reaches back through time to the creator and
first users of these atlases when they were new. When they were new
technology. The way the atlas is stitched together, the order of the
plates, the varying color schemes from one printing to the next, etc.,
etc., -- for me these are all tangibles lost on disc. And they are all
clues to the people who created these atlases, and the rationale behind the
atlases, etc. [How is a digitized Sanborn ever going to make clear the
gritty reality of those "pasties?" and the reality they cover up?]
Financially and spatially strapped administrators, may well see
digitizing entire collections, and thus reducing them to a shoebox, or
better yet, vapor, [downsizing to the max] as a solution to space and
economic issues [read staff costs]. Over and over in discussions on
digitizing, the lauded access beyond the doors of the museum or library is
raised as the answer to our prayers. The flip side, is a message that
the originals really arent that valuable, and can be put in storage. The
flip side to "hey, these are accessible to the guy in the street in
Podunk," is the assumption that then the curator or the librarian is not
needed as an intermediary, and more importantly as a bridge to related
information and collections. Of course, all the guys and gals in Podunk
have computers and access to the Web. [Hah.]
What is the expression?? "the map is not the land. Well, the digit is
not the map." Digitizing is great, as an enhancement, not as a
substitute. Maps from library and museum collections, digitized and
placed on the web will enhance their home collections, will serve as
"advertisements" for those collections, and invitations to distant readers
to use these collections, even when it means travel to remote places
[like Manhattan].
Oh well, I am sure I have stepped in it now, having opened the barn
door..., but, even if messy, this is all sure fun!
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: Re[2]: Digitizing Maps
Author: Patrick McGlamery <[log in to unmask]> at Internet
Date: 7/14/95 8:48 AM
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
The horse is out of the barn Alice. I loved Tom Neff's statement,
"A whole CD-ROM or optical disk is no more valuable than the original
map whose image it carries." This really gets to the nub of scanning
cartographic treasures. I mean, compare the Red Hot Chili Peppers
latest release for $14.95 and a really good scan of a Jefferson and Frye.
Why are we quibbling about file size?
Alice, I know this hasn't gotten to your much more significant question of
WHAT to scan. Is it a question of putting together an exhibit, or a
collection development policy? Personally I'd rather see excellent scanned
images of maps, which meet all the technical controls, as part of multi-media
publications than simply as maps. Puts a whole scholarly twist to it, but
I, for one, am ready to be the scholar/librarian for a change.
Patrick McGlamery
|