TRANSLATE ENGLISH to Français, Deutsch, Italiano, Português, Español! ^Explanation

THE NECESSITY AND NUISANCE OF SURVIVAL, OR HOW TO KEEP TO OUR SENSES^{Ref. 1}
Jan Smits, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague, The Netherlands

Author's opinion concerning use of illustrations and copyright (forthcoming in August 1999)

I remember friends from wars all but we forgot.
All of them distilled into each wound we caught.
Those wounds are all the painful places where we fought.
Battles never left behind, ones we never sought.
What is it that we spent and what was it we bought.
(Frank Herbert, 1984)

Slide 1. Transition from the traditional analogue map collection to the future analogue and digital spatial library (MS PowerPoint) or (still slide).

Transitions
There are analogies between the transition from manuscripts to printed material and from analogue to digital material. When we observe the transition from manuscripts to print materials we see first a degeneration in expression, because woodblock printing was a crude technology compared to the stylus or goose-feather. Lines and symbols especially are broader and irregular. Only when technology permitted a sharper definition of the expression (e.g. with copper-engravings or lithography) there came the time that it overreached the possibilities of the manuscript stage.
Though digital cartography permits depictions on the scale 1:1 most expressions appear crude compared to the analogue expression. Also because of the colour regime, and partly due to the VDU we have to work with, it offends our esthetical taste a lot of the time.

Simultaneously there is a transition in map-content. Manuscript maps are often working survey documents, symbolic, judicial, etc. and mainly give a local view. The printed map tries to give a static view of the earth and the influence of mankind on it as well as mankind's own interaction, but also gives better possibilities to envisage more realistically remoter (ideas about) space. The digital map will show most probably a more dynamic view of what is represented on the printed map, and carries the danger of disenfranchising the viewer from its base in reality by its inherent virtuality and possibilities for pure abstractions. But the ongoing transition in technology also makes it possible to increase diversity of content and increase the complexity of symbolisation and expression in every consecutive stage. It might also be that GIS-technology is waiting for innovative cartographic expressions because it cannot express yet sophisticated results of analysis in a generalized comprehensible way.

Maybe part of the degeneration, which happens during transitions, derives from the fact that not only professionals can create the spatial visualisations but also amateurs who easily can get a quick grasp of the new technology available, as they are not burdened by knowledge of traditional technologies. One other important fact is that the new technologies permit more people to view and manipulate the output, accidentally or purposely. Because the new masses are not versed in reading the visual representations, in first instance, they will be less critical than professional users ^{Ref. 2} . It may even be that some common cartographic knowledge will disappear like what happened to the classical Greek/Hellenistic and Roman cartographical traditions of some 2,000 years ago, only to reappear some time later in revamped conditions.
Only when new technologies have proved themselves to be technically and economically viable, and professionals have regained a new edge over the amateurs, crudeness of representation will become less and aesthetics will prevail more. At the same time users will have a better understanding of the content as they will become better able to read the representations.

Slide 2. Flowmodel for the transition of technology in cartography and map curatorship (MS PowerPoint) or (still slide).

The almost parallel transitions in production speed, diversity of contents, and diversity of use every time brings us to exponentially higher levels of sophisti cation.
For the map curator the transition will bring a future which may well be as versed by Andrew Tatham during the Zürich conference of 1994: "We shall no longer provide the users with someone else's selection and presentation of data, but with the data itself and with the means by which the user can make their own selection and presentation of this data to inform or to mould their own or other people's image of the world" ^{Ref. 3} . It is hoped of course that the poem of Frank Herbert, cited at the beginning of this article, will not become the epitaph of those map curators who cannot find themselves at home in the future map collections.
The transition sometimes makes me claim that ultimately all knowledge is based on philosophy. To my opinion philofophy tries to penetrate into the innermost reaches of mysteries, not solving them, but clarifying them or accentuating their properties and integrating them with all other mysteries. In this way it tries to form a wholeness which makes believing easier.

Perception
The standard definition of cartography is:

The whole of scientific, technical and artistic activities directed at the creation and use of cartographic products.^{Ref. 4}

The whole of scientific, technical and artistic activities directed at reconstructing observed, planned and imagined spatial reality into a visual representation, which meets the uses of the rational and sensual faculties.

Libraries and spatial information
In the nineteenth century when learned societies started to change the scientific landscape, cartography was a branch of study for geographical societies. Maps for many adherents were one of the easiest ways to understand the exploration of previously unknown territories. The rise of thematic maps made them more aware of their own surroundings and the interaction of man with these surroundings. As maps became more and more a part of general education and tourism the cartographer specialised more and more in visualising large scale basic information which became tools for government management and planning. This specialisation also led to the forming of independent cartographic societies, which did not form an integrated whole with geographic societies anymore.
In libraries this cessation had already become reality by the turn of the nineteenth century. Because of their unwieldy form, maps were put in separate departments, sometimes to their detriment as links to their geographical book and periodical counterparts were sometimes lost. Thanks to the hard labours of many map curators they usually are in the best shape possible. Because of their specialisation map curators are sometimes outside the mainstream of library life because they identify themselves more with their subject and its content then library personnel usually do. Many map curator groups therefore are part of cartographic societies and not of library societies. Exceptions are the global IFLA Geography and Map Library Section and the European Groupe des Cartothécaires de LIBER. Though these are part of library societies they are not as integrated as may be desirable and continue to be rather independent and more focussed on their subject matter than is usual in the library field.

In this digital age where cartography and GIS become more integrated and where it is possible to integrate disparate sources of information there seems for the cartographic professions to be a shift from purely cartographic visualisation to the use of spatial data in all its manifestations. Therefore it seems logical to put the question whether departments, which occupy themselves with different kinds of spatial data and their accompanying processes, should not (virtually) integrate or at least force stronger links with the other departments. This is true for the professional societies as well as for the library and archive map departments. There are developments, which show that societies, which occupy themselves with spatial data become overlapping or are looking into the possibilities of federating. Looking at developments within the Alexandria Library Project we see the same with libraries and other data holders.

Seen in this perspective it is strange to notice that e.g. The IFLA '98 digital map librarian workshop, organised by the IFLA Section of Geography and Map Libraries, got so little response that it had to be called off. This means that most European map curators, with the exception maybe of those in the United Kingdom and Scandinavia, cannot yet learn a technology which will be predominant in the future spatial library.
Another bad example is the fear of map curators to think of applying GIS-technology to their older possessions. When older maps are scanned GIS-tools can be used for extraction (e.g. toponyms), vectorization (e.g. boundary or choropleth maps), creation (e.g. integrating boundary maps with statistical data), overlays (e.g. comparing states of a certain map), etc. Curiously no library is involved in a project like The Great Britain Historical GIS Programme and most probably more of these kinds of programmes will evolve in time. When we do not embrace new technology willingly it will become the harder to persuade library management to built the necessary digital environment in which we have to work in future and which will enable us also to co-operate easier with other collections.

Changing activities
Up till now standard activities of map curators in the analogue age have been:

• Acquisition
• Accessing
• Conservation
• Collection management
• Public services.

In view of this, standard activities of map curators in the digital age probably will be:

• Study, study, etc. (education permanente)
• Acquisition
• Analysis
• Accessing
• Conservation
• Collection management
• Public services
• Representation of data

Conclusion One of the future tasks of map curators will be to preserve the faculty to review spatial visual representations on their rational as well as on their sensual aspects. Those who have the ability to help create or view visual spatial representations should be able to guide users in choosing those expressions, which give at least the same overall results as we are accustomed to in the analogue age. Due to the finances involved, libraries (in this case map libraries) must try to create national infrastructures and negotiate agreements with publishers to make digital sources mutually available or available through distributed licenses, as, for example, with CHEST^{Ref. 8} in Great Britain. Besides this I think that map curators should also lobby for the creation of visual digital geographical interfaces based on geographical co-ordinates. Area will always be the main entry to find spatial data but word thesauri or alphanumerical classifications always will be arbitrary systems. The visual digital geographical interfaces will also enable the combination of area and subject as the maps used can be topographical and thematical ^{Ref. 9} .

Though seemingly obvious libraries, must be aware that archiving digital spatial sources in a single repository makes availability vulnerable, especially by technical default. Mirror archives are essential, even when created within a single institution.
Usually the context in which analogue materials function is preserved with them. The same is not always true for digital materials, especially when the datasets are pure data. Map curators should secure exemplary output (on long-term preservable media) as evidence of common usage of digital spatial sources to illustrate a historical context.

Interactivity of sources and processing of data will make spatial information a means for map curators to achieve a valuable and serviceable cartographic expression. The only end in this will be to serve (future) customers.

Notes

1. This article forms a quadruptych together with Metadata, an introduction, and Spatial Metadata, an international survey on clearinghouses and infrastructure (both published in the Cataloguing and Classification Quarterly, ISSN 0163-9374, vol. 27, 1999) and Developments in spatial data management: Dutch impressions (published in: Proceedings [of the] 35th Annual Symposium [of] The British Cartographic Society [and] Map Curators' Group Workshop, University of Keele, 1998). Back to document

2. "But whether an increased exploitation of the [digital] map will serve knowledge and understanding more than hype and glitter is uncertain, for without a graphically literate and geographically astute public, maps may become little more than pleasurable icons employed to seduce and entertain rather than to inform and enlighten".
   MONMONIER, Mark Stephen (1985). Technological transition in cartography. The University of Wisconsin Press. p. xviii. Back to document

3. TATHAM, Andrew (1995). Can the map curator adapt?
   In: The Liber Quarterly, Vol. 5/1995, No. 3, pp. 330-336. Back to document

4. BOS, E.S. et al. (ed.) (1991). Kartografisch woordenboek, 1.1. (Dutch cartographical dictionary) Back to document

5. HUMBOLT, Alexander von (1811). Essay politique sur le royaume de Nouvelle-Espagne. Back to document

6. COWAN, Jim (1996). The spade of reason.
   In: Century 4. Back to document

7. MOLENAAR, Martien (1998). To see or not to see. Inaugural address for the acceptance of the Chair in Geoinformatics and Spatial Data Acquisition at the ITC. Back to document

8. CHEST negotiates for the supply of software, data, information, training materials and other IT related products to the Higher and Further Education sectors in the UK and Republic of Ireland. Back to document

9. SMITS, Jan (1998). Developments in spatial data management: Dutch impressions . (MS PowerPoint presentation) or "klik hier om te starten" Slide show
   In: Proceedings [of the] 35th Annual Symposium [of] The British Cartographic Society [and] Map Curators' Group Workshop, University of Keele 1998, pp. 10-19. Back to document

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