Coordinates: Online Journal of the Map and Geography Round Table, American Library Association

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http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/129156

An Open Access journal on topics including map and GIS librarianship, history of cartography, map cataloging, map reading and interpretation and new developments in online mapping. Series A, Original Peer-Reviewed Articles ; Series B, Essays and Reports ; published from 2005 - 2009

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 23

Letter to the Editor
(ALA Map and Geography Round Table, 2008-04-17) Kovarsky, Joel
Letter to the editor regarding David Bosse's article, "Institutional Map and Atlas Collecting in Eighteenth-Century America," (Coordinates, Series B; 9).
Letter to the Editor
(ALA Map and Geography Round Table, 2008-05-07) Andrew, Paige
Letter to the editor regarding Jorge A. Gonzalez’ article "Problems That Arise When Providing Geographic Coordinate Information for Cataloged Maps” (Coordinates Series B, No. 8).
A Mirror of Our World: Google Earth and the History of Cartography
(ALA Map and Geography Round Table, 2009-08-20) Allen, David Y.
Google Earth is widely admired as one of the most advanced and powerful products of modern computerized cartography. It has been praised as a revolutionary new way of viewing the earth, as the first convincing attempt at a mirror-world or a simulacrum of the earth. Nonetheless, Google Earth is deeply rooted in the practices and conventions of Western cartography. This article examines what is new and what is old in Google Earth. It especially focuses on the extent to which Google Earth constitutes a mirror world, and on the philosophical meaning and validity of such concepts as cartographic mirroring and representation. It also speculates about the possible future development of Google Earth and similar efforts to mirror the world in digital form.
Louis H. Everts: American Atlas Publisher and Entrepreneur
(ALA Map and Geography Round Table, 2009-06-08) Moak, Jefferson M.
Louis H. Everts was a native of New York, resident of Illinois, and publisher in Chicago, Philadelphia and Buffalo. His life and business practices illustrate the growth and changes in American county map publishing between the post Civil War period and the pre-World War I era.
The History of Cartography in a Nutshell
(ALA Map and Geography Round Table, 2008-06-03) Valerio, Vladimiro
his is a very short history of cartography. Notes and links to images are included at the end.
Institutional Map and Atlas Collecting in Eighteenth-Century America
(ALA Map and Geography Round Table, 2008-04-17) Bosse, David
Many colonists brought books, atlases, and maps to America; some assembled personal libraries that would ultimately benefit public institutions. The establishment of academic and subscription libraries initiated institutional collecting. Printed catalogues and other records document the cartographic collections formed in early America. This essay surveys those collections
Problems That Arise When Providing Geographic Coordinate Information for Cataloged Maps
(ALA Map and Geography Round Table, 2007-10-16) Gonzalez, Jorge A.
Maps are not always published with coordinates. However, by following strict guidelines in the 034 and 255 MARC fields, and by using cataloging rules, one can interpolate this data in order to provide coordinates in bibliographic records. Bounding boxes and center point coordinates are key components in the catalog record, but problems arise with maps providing information outside of discussed or established standards, or maps not providing coordinates at all for different reasons. This article explores the importance of correctly understanding, using, and interpreting map cataloging rules to provide the most accurate information possible, with the goal of making it possible to find maps quickly and accurately—whether using database retrieval or a coordinate-driven search engine. It is proposed that we can find an efficient universal method to represent locations, addresses, and areas of the world through the use of geographic coordinates for print and digital cartographic materials. Finally, the article states the strong need to standardize spatial cataloging information to improve search query responses by providing uniform information and by addressing the problems discussed in this article.
Teaching the History of Cartography: A Case for the Marriage of Special Collections and Distance Learning
(ALA Map and Geography Round Table, 2006-09-25) Kovarsky, Joel
Very few institutions offer introductory courses in the history of cartography. Distance learning is a way to make this type of course more widely available. This paper discusses the ways in which special collections resources (maps, atlases and related materials) can be used in conjunction with existing distance learning technologies to expand access to educational opportunities in the field. The purpose of this article is to discuss the feasibility of the distance approach, not to provide a detailed example. Expanding access through distance learning would benefit students, life-long learners, librarians, faculty, and other interested individuals. The main emphasis is on blended learning situations, employing both synchronous (real-time) and asynchronous technologies.
Recent Trends in the History of Cartography: A Selective, Annotated Bibliography to the English-Language Literature
(ALA Map and Geography Round Table, 2007-04-11) Edney, Matthew H.
The history of cartography has since the 1970s significantly expanded its disciplinary reach, its theoretical directions and approaches, and its scholarship. This annotated bibliography is intended as a guide to the extended field. It seeks to remind newcomers and established map scholars alike of the field’s traditional concerns (and literatures) and to inform them of its new directions and scholarship.
Commentary to "The So-Called Velasco Map: A Case of Forgery?"
(ALA Map and Geography Round Table, 2006-02-14) Seaver, Kirsten A.
This article discusses David Y. Allen, "The So-Called Velasco Map: A Case of Forgery?" (Coordinates, Series A, no. 5).
The Map that Named America: Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 World Map
(ALA Map and Geography Round Table, 2005-08-29) Hebert, John R.
This brief overview of the history of Martin Waldseemüller's 1507 map and its acquisition by the Library of Congress is presented as a complement to John Hessler's article, "Warping Waldseemüller: A Cartometric Study of the Coast of South America as Portrayed on the 1507 World Map" (Coordinates, Series A, No. 4). A high-resolution image of the Waldseemüller map can be found at http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3200.ct000725C.
Historical Maps Online
(ALA Map and Geography Round Table, 2005-01-31) Rumsey, David Y.
For 20 years, David Rumsey assembled a collection of more than 150,000 historical maps of the Americas and the world. Motivated by a desire to make his private map collection a free public resource, Rumsey then created an online map library, http://www.davidrumsey.com/, which currently has over 10,000 high resolution images of maps from his collection. He has also built a suite of tools for users to experience and interpret the maps online. These include GIS, which allows users to combine historical maps with modern geospatial data to see change over time. The online map collection can be accessed over the Internet from search engines, library catalogs, GIS databases and many other entry points. Rumsey continues to add new content to the online collection and develops new tools that improve both the user experience and the online library architecture.
Mapping under the Third Reich: Nazi Restrictions on Map Content and Distribution
(ALA Map and Geography Round Table, 2005-01-31) Monmonier, Mark
A 99-page 1947 State Department report discovered in the NOAA Central Library summarized sixty map-related regulations issued by the German government between July 1934 and June 1944. Although the Third Reich pursued cartographic unification and uniformity more vigorously than earlier central governments, regional diversity and the distractions of a multi-front war hindered attempts to standardize map series and develop a national base map at 1:5,000. Pragmatism trumped propaganda when Nazi rule-makers decided to retain Latin lettering for maps, rather than require the more ornate German script used in official government publications and strongly promoted for books and newspapers. Official mapmaking had numerous niches in diverse government departments. In restricting distribution of detailed maps to the public, Nazi cartographic policy recognized the importance of scale by drawing a sharp line at 1:300,000. Covering both large- and small-scale products, a 1937 law gave the Ministry of the Interior authority over private mapmakers, who now had to conform to official policy on geographic names as well as the colors used on political maps.
Editorial: Cartographic Journals— A Look Back and Prospects for the Future
(ALA Map and Geography Round Table, 2005-10-05) Allen, David Y.
This article reviews the recent history of journal publishing in the the fields of cartography, GIS, history of cartography, and related subjects. The impact of the Internet and Web-based publishing on cartographic journals is discussed, with particular emphasis on the development of "open access" electronic journal publishing. The philosophy and guiding principles behind Coordinates as an online open-access journal are presented. An effort is made to project existing trends into the future, and to predict the direction of cartographic publishing in the coming decades.
Juan de la Cosa’s Projection: A Fresh Analysis of the Earliest Preserved Map of the Americas
(ALA Map and Geography Round Table, 2010-05-24) Robles Macias, Luis A.
Previous cartographic studies of the 1500 map by Juan de La Cosa have found substantial and difficult-to-explain errors in latitude, especially for the Antilles and the Caribbean coast. In this study, a mathematical methodology is applied to identify the underlying cartographic projection of the Atlantic region of the map, and to evaluate its latitudinal and longitudinal accuracy. The results obtained show that La Cosa’s latitudes are in fact reasonably accurate between the English Channel and the Congo River for the Old World, and also between Cuba and the Amazon River for the New World. Other important findings are that scale is mathematically consistent across the whole Atlantic basin, and that the line labeled 'cancro' on the map does not represent the Tropic of Cancer, as usually assumed, but the ecliptic. The underlying projection found for La Cosa’s map has a simple geometric interpretation and is relatively easy to compute, but has not been described in detail until now. It may have emerged involuntarily as a consequence of the mapmaking methods used by the map’s author, but the historical context of the chart suggests that it was probably the result of a deliberate choice by the cartographer.
Geospatial Web Services, Open Standards, and Advances in Interoperability: A Selected, Annotated Bibliography
(ALA Map and Geography Round Table, 2010-03-09) Dietz, Cynthia
This paper is designed to help GIS librarians and information specialists follow developments in the emerging field of geospatial Web services (GWS). When built using open standards, GWS permits users to dynamically access, exchange, deliver, and process geospatial data and products on the World Wide Web, no matter what platform or protocol is used. Standards/specifications pertaining to geospatial ontologies, geospatial Web services and interoperability are discussed in this bibliography. Finally, a selected, annotated list of bibliographic references by experts in the field is presented.
How to Map a Sandwich: Surfaces, Topological Existence Theorems and the Changing Nature of Modern Thematic Cartography, 1966-1972
(ALA Map and Geography Round Table, 2009-03-15) Hessler, John
This paper is meant to be the beginning of a project that examines the use of abstract mathematics and the changing ontology of mapmaking in the early years of the development of computer cartography. The history of the conceptual developments that took place during this revolutionary period in the history of mapmaking is both controversial and incomplete. Much of the primary source material has yet to be examined by historians, residing as it does in obscure journals, government archives and in obsolete software. This study provides a look at one example of this conceptual development in the early years of computer cartography through a close reading of two papers on existence theorems published by the Harvard Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis. It attempts to highlight the changing conceptual and mathematical foundations of mapmaking during this period and in doing so provides a case study for the difficulties that historians of modern cartography face in researching this critical period in its history.
An Analysis of Toponymic Homonyms in Gazetteers: Country-Level Duplicate Names in the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s Geographic Names Data Base
(ALA Map and Geography Round Table, 2008-08-20) Caldwell, Douglas R.
Place names are the most common way we identify geographic features. When place names are unambiguous, they can georeference features, locating them uniquely on the globe. The problem with place names is that they are often not unique; each place may have many names and many different places may have the same name. This paper studies the issue of identical names which refer to many different places, i.e., toponymic homonyms. Our country level analysis, using the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s Geographic Names Data Base, lays the foundation for future systematic analysis of the toponymic homonym problem. To better understand the scope of the problem, we evaluated the number of toponymic homonyms, toponymic homonyms as a percentage of all names, the maximum number of places referenced per toponymic homonym, and the 90th percentile of thetoponymic homonym count. Finally, we calculated a measure of toponymic homonym complexity.
The So-Called “Velasco Map”: A Case of Forgery?
(ALA Map and Geography Round Table, 2006-02-14) Allen, David Y.
This article examines a well-known map of the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada allegedly made in or around 1610. The map was uncovered in the Spanish Archives at Simancas in 1887. Supposedly, it is a copy of an anonymous English map, which was sent to King Phillip III of Spain by the Spanish ambassador to London, Don Alonzo de Velasco. This article raises the possibility that the map may actually be a nineteenth-century forgery. The map is based primarily on information found on early seventeenth-century maps, most of which were not published in 1610, although it is possible that manuscript copies of these maps might have been available as early as 1610. The overall geographic framework of the map seems to be improbably accurate for its supposed date of creation. The map contains numerous oddities, and many features on the map do not appear on other maps made in the early seventeenth century. Overall it seems anachronistic and it stands in isolation from other maps made around 1600. Although no single feature on the map proves beyond a doubt that it is a forgery, the overall weight of the evidence makes it seem highly probable that it is a fake. Tests on the paper, pigment, and handwriting of the map should be made to prove conclusively whether or not it is a forgery.
Warping Waldseemüller: A Cartometric Study of the Coast of South America As Portrayed on the 1507 World Map
(ALA Map and Geography Round Table, 2005-08-29) Hessler, John
In an attempt to shed some light on the problem of Martin Waldseemüller’s portrayal of the shape of South America on his important 1507 world map, polynomial warping algorithms and regression analysis are applied to the coastlines of South America on his map and the known coastal outline. Correlation coefficients are calculated and regression curves are analyzed for inflection point behavior in order to quantitatively compare the geometries of both coastlines. High correlations have been found between both shapes suggesting the possibility of Waldseemüller’s use of empirical data in mapping the South American continent rather than pure chance.

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