For this literature review I selected two sources, one practical and one fanciful. The practical source is “Digital Map Librarianship: A Working Syllabus” from the IFLA Section of Geography and Map Libraries. The fanciful one is You Are Here: Personal Geographies and other Maps of the Imagination by Katherine Harmon.
“Digital Map Librarianship: A Working Syllabus,” IFLA Section of Geography and Map Libraries. Accessed July 24, 2013, http://magic.lib.uconn.edu/exhibits/ifla/.
“Digital Map Librarianship: A Working Syllabus” was prepared by the IFLA Section of Geography and Map Libraries to provide a framework for teaching librarians how to use digital cartographic materials and metadata, developing a collection website and preparing a reference guide. The materials are divided into sections, each of which contain detailed information about a series of subtopics and a suggested citation for further reading.
What is a digital map
This section compares the function and features of paper versus digital maps and explains basic concepts of digital maps such as raster and vector data, primary and secondary sources, and features of the spatial database like scale, projection, symbols, spatial data quality that may be unique to digital information.
Working with geodata
This section walks the reader through the process of accessing and downloading digital data from ESRI’s “Digital Chart of the World.” It also provides links to other digital data sources and the user guide for ArcExplorer. Unfortunately some of the links on the website are broken, including most of the external library references and the link to ArcExplorer. According to ESRI’s website, ArcExplorer has been superseded by ArcGIS Explorer, a newer version of the online software. In this case the page directs the user to the updated site.
Library function
This section contains information on developing an online reference guide for users of the library’s digital collection with links to examples from a number of university libraries. It also links to building digital dataset and image collections, storage issues and processing paper collections for digitization.
Metadata
This section provides an overview to metadata in general A link to the typology of metadata for cartographic and spatial data, including explanations of Band One through Four metadata and a useful chart identifying the purpose and formats for each level of metadata. For example, linking Band One to unstructured data, Band Two to Dublin Core/DTD, Band Three to ISBD/MARC/UNIMARC and Band Four to FGDC, CEN, ISO/Base DTD.
Evaluation
The currency of the information on this website is not optimal. There is no specific ”updated on” date information listed on the site. Clues to the age of the site include the home page, which links to “Past Workshops” dated 1996 and 1997, and section citations which are primarily dated 1997. This suggests that the site is not maintained regularly, if at all, and accounts for the vast number of broken links. In some cases, such as the link to ArcExplorer, the target page provided a link to the updated page, but most of the library references returned an error page or resolved to the library home page. Oddens Bookmarks has been closed for a number of years. I looked at the IFLA website and found that the Section of Geography and Map Libraries no longer exists and there are no other divisions, sections, special interest groups or special programs on mapping or geography, so it is unlikely that this resource will be further updated.
Overall, this website has value as a historical document and perhaps practical value as a starting point for basic digital mapping concepts and for developing a map collection and reference materials for public use. However, there is surely more up to date information available through organizations, such as the ALA’s Map & Geospatial Information Round Table (http://www.ala.org/magirt/) or the Special Libraries Association’s Geography and Map Section (http://units.sla.org/division/dgm/).
Harmon, Katharine (ed.). You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination. New York, N.Y.: Princeton Architectural Press, 2004.
You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination, edited by Katherine Harmon is a selection of essays and full color map images created by writers, visual artists, poets, historians and map enthusiasts. I was interested in this book after having taken a unit on counter mapping in Professor Chris Sula’s Digital Humanities Course. The maps included in this volume are not maps in the sense that they represent a physical reality, but instead use the pictorial imagery of map making as a metaphor for concepts they are meant to depict.
Harmon discusses in the introduction the power that maps hold over our imaginations. She uses phrases like “terrain of imagination” and “contour lines of experience” to highlight how the coded, visual language of maps is an accessible metaphor for human expression. In pointing out the work of creative cartographers infusing maps with humor and the map maker’s particular point of view, she also underlines how even in maps that are intended to represent a physical reality are themselves skewed by the cartographer’s political, religious, or personal objectives.
This volume includes six essays and a number of poems and excerpts from literature, such as passages Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Shark and Roald Dahl’s The BFG, which serve as bookends to the work. I particularly liked Lewis Carroll’s chart of the ocean from The Hunting of the Shark that pictures nothing, but is described as a map “we all could understand.”
The essays include Stephen S. Hall’s memoir of his own introduction to and love of maps and Brigdet Booher’s account of a lifetime of bodily injury, represented as a kind of walking tour of her life. Roger Sheffer’s “The Mental Geography of Appalachian Trail Hikers” includes doodles and helpful instructions left by hikers in guest books at trail shelters along the route. Hugh Brogan discusses the lure of maps in illustrating imaginary places in children’s literature.
Katie Davis’ “Memory Map” describes the old trope about people giving directions to strangers based on where things used to be, such as “…turn left where the big tree used to be before the earthquake,” and explains the urge people have to describe places in personal terms. I connected with this story through the research I am doing on the history of places and what used to be there.
Harmon writes that our attraction to maps is instinctive, that even if a map is of a place we’ve never been or that doesn’t even exist, we understand the image and know what to do with it. The images in this volume are particularly compelling, almost making the essays secondary. These include memory maps, maps from fictional locations, maps of the human body, and maps that chart behaviors that lead one to heaven or hell or help one find love. Some of the maps are completely imaginary or use familiar shapes, such as hearts or country outlines to walk the viewer through a representation of an idea. Others use existing and familiar maps, such as the London Underground, as a framework for making an explicit statement about data layered on it.
Evaluation
You Are Here is an engaging look at how people use maps creatively to express ideas, opinions or to illustrate imaginary places and themes. It reveals the psychology of maps and spatial representation as a form of expression. As a map library resource, this book would be useful in exploring the choices made in iconography and representation of space. It would be particularly helpful to historians studying antiquarian maps, as some of these, while attempting to document a spatial reality, contain exaggerated or imagined boundaries, fanciful imagery and iconography of political expression. It would also find a place in arts and visual design libraries, literature libraries, as well as social and political science libraries.
