----------------------------Original message---------------------------- But the problem is - those easy-to-use products are few and far between. Certainly we all want them to be thick on the ground - but they aren't! And the kind of software users need for anything beyond the equivalent of "See Spot run" does indeed require handholding. There is a substantial difference between Street Atlas and, say, Arc/Info (or even ArcView) and such image-processing software as ERDAS. Yes, it's getting easier to use (sloooowly), but the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of the users of spatial-data collections have a relatively low computer-literacy ability, or if they do, it stops abruptly at just past word-processing software. Mary L. Larsgaard, UCSB