----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I'm glad the subject of how much work librarians should be doing with GIS has come up on MAPS-L. It's become a critical issue here at the University of Chicago Map Collection, where several hundred people have made use of digital spatial data during the last twenty months or so. Most of these have used the Sammamish software to work with 1990 census data, but many people have made outline maps from the ESRI data sets, and a few patrons have also played with _Street atlas USA_ and other materials. Just about everyone has needed help in getting started, and the majority of users have required vast amounts of additional help. I've done what I could to minimize this. I've written elaborate instruction sheets. I've also extracted data likely to be used, as Pat has evidently done at UConn (but here it's block-level data for Cook County, and tract-level data for Northeastern Illinois and a number of other large urban areas (New York, Southern and Northern California, etc.)). I've quasi-cataloged these "permanent" hard-disk files and also printed out several dozen good-quality maps on our plotter so patrons can skip the computer altogether. But I've still had to spend hours a week helping people. I enjoy doing this (it's wonderful to see users so pleased). In many ways helping people make digital maps fits into the Map Collection's tradition of personal service. But there have been weeks when there hasn't been time for much else, and this just doesn't work. (At risk of sounding like the worst whiner in the world, I'm also anthropology, geography, and acting sociology bibliographer ("acting" for 2-2/3 years) in a library that doesn't believe in blanket-order plans.) When I mentioned this problem on the ARL-GIS list late last spring, the only response I got was that the Library should provide more staff. It was useful to show this response to my supervisors, but more staff really wouldn't help much, since it takes hours and hours to learn to use the software well, and the students who work at the Map Collection really aren't here long enough to have a chance to do this, and, besides, I need them to file maps and do other traditional Map Collection clerical tasks (although the dropoff in the government's production of paper maps [a subject I'd like to see discussed on MAPS-L] has allowed some shifting around here). I certainly don't think we should be withdrawing the service. There's a demand for it; no one else (certainly not the University Computing Organization) is going to provide it; it's actually a good chance for a map library to be a little less at the margin of things. I hope someone will tell me if I'm wrong, but the only thing I can think of that would lessen the burden would be if digital mapping companies made their software easier for users to manipulate. If GeoSight FactFinder or ArcView were as easy to maneuver through as your average online catalog there wouldn't be a problem at all. Chris Winters University of Chicago Library Bitnet: uclwint@uchimvs1 Internet: [log in to unmask]