----------------------------Original message---------------------------- 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. ********************************************************************** April Carlucci [log in to unmask] The British Library Voice +44 171 412 7000x4167 Map Library +44 171 412 7703 Great Russell Street Fax +44 171 412 7780 London WC1B 3DG United Kingdom "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" **********************************************************************