From: m Kelley <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2024 10:08 PM
To: Maps-L: Map Librarians, etc. <[log in to unmask]>; Williams, Paula <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Content warnings for map collections

To Whom it May Concern,

We have in our department, among other World War II maps, a 1939 Poland map showing the line of partition between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. A map librarian from Stanford saw the map hanging in our display case, and we discussed at length the tragic history of that country. We also have in our possession a Klett-Perthes wall map of India (ca. 1960s) that was defaced with Nazi symbols and "Long live Khalistan" on it. I am highly familiar with Denis Wood's writings, and I worked at the US Geological Survey in the mapping section. I even love reading Mark Monmonier's works.

I am a trained cartographer in the scientific aspect of mapping. A chapter of my dissertation was on map types and, briefly, addressed various cultural practices of depicting the landscape scientifically, culturally, and aesthetically. I was taught and trained to be as honest to the surveyors' and geologists' original copy as much as was technologically possible. I have made demographic data for teaching purposes and taught my cartography students as well following the above. I have been taught about the evils of propaganda mapping and have carried on that tradition.

What I was taught and did teach was that making maps is usually a multi-step and multi-person endeavor that what we think is reality on those documents of record and what is depicted is not reality, but filtered models of Earth and its processes. The maps I have encountered and am currently curating and cataloging are physical representations of what was culturally, scientifically, and technologically doable at the time of "publication." We were also fully aware that once a map gets published, it is already out of date.

So instead of putting trigger warnings on maps as a superficial band-aid, use those documents as teaching tools in order for lay people to fully understand the complexity of the map making processes.

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