MAGIRT (Map and Geospatial Information Round Table ) Round Table

Apologies to those who saw the question I posted to MAPS-L today. I would like to ask my fellow MAGERT members what should be done to make the new US Topo online maps accessible in libraries.

In December 2009, Richard Huffine announced "a new series of digital topographic maps, called US TOPO, that will be produced on a 3-year cycle for the entire conterminous United States" to MAPS-L. His post generated discussion at the time, but since then, there seem to be no postings regarding library practices to help users access the new topographic maps online.

With printed 7.5-minute paper topographic maps, US GPO created map serial records for each state, allowing libraries to load records and attach holdings on an ongoing basis. GPO staff also attempted to catalog each edition of each quadrangle. For many libraries, these records provided choices and many libraries used the map serial records to provide general access to the collections and printed indexes to pinpoint areas of interest.

In July 2010, the GPO started cataloging and archiving the new PDF files. About 280 may now be accessed through CGP (GPO's catalog) using the advanced search SuDoc Call Number = I 19.81: AND W-URL= http (adding an LC subject heading word, such as a state name, makes this search more specific.) Each US Topo map cataloged by GPO has an OCLC record with a unique PURL is assigned to link to the file archived on GPO's server. Linking the PURL to the archived copy should allow retrieval of the specific edition even after if it were removed from the USGS site.

As I see it, the down side to this archival cataloging is currency: users seeking newly-created current editions may not find them or be aware of their existence. The US Topo site links to The USGS Store, which offers both a textual and graphical index. Using the USGS Store, it's possible to find and retrieve the 1993 and 2010 editions for Beaver, PA (which has been cataloged by GPO. Clicking around, one can retrieve the nearby Ambridge, PA quadrangle, which cannot be located through CGP because it lacks a record at this time. In a similar fashion, users seeking a topo for Avon, NY won't find it in CGP (even when it's cataloged) because the quadrangle is named Rush, NY.

Today we need to be able to help users locate maps whenever they want. Lacking the ability to push a printed index to users, would it be better to point users to a point of entry such as the US Topo page, the USGS Store page, or somewhere else?  If there's agreement in the maps community, perhaps GPO could create a serial map record for the country and assign a PURL to take users to the best access point.

 

I currently have no way of dealing with digital maps, except for those that arrive through depository on DVD.  I have no original cataloging, the nsdi node (+ expertise) resides elsewhere, the GIS data center on campus (+ expertise) resides elsewhere, the servers and web site administrators are in the building but not under my direct control.

So.  I need to come up with a plan to transition to digital maps that will cover every aspect of their housing and access.  I'm interested in USGS topos of course, but also DRGs that can be bought from vendors (East View, Omni, etc.)

If you are acquiring and providing access to ANYTHING along these lines I want to talk to you!!

Currently my fake labor-intensive (silo-ish) workaround for providing access is to make a LibGuide for each product that includes screen shots.  Here is my example for Sanborn Maps.

http://libguides.lib.msu.edu/sanborn

Kathleen Weessies

Geosciences Librarian; Head, Map Library

Michigan State University

weessie2@mail.lib.msu.edu

517-884-0849

 

By the way, I think sheet-level records for topos is pretty idiotic.  it's easy if you buy Marcive records, but I don't see that it helps many patrons.  And it isn't complete.  I figured out that only 1/3 of Michigan paper topos have Marcive records.  We have our paper topos cataloged at the state level.  here is an example:

http://catalog.lib.msu.edu/record=b3998666~S17a

50 bib records and your're done.  But we share our online catalog with another library that does have the sheet-level data dump of records, which causes confusion of course because then it looks like we don't own them. 

PS: Michigan National Map quads aren't available yet.  I heard we have the honor of being the LAST state to get them!

We've done sheet-level records for the Georgia 15- & 30-minutes topo quads & will eventually do them for the 7.5-minute GA sheets.  But I'd rather have state-level records for the rest of the country.  Aside from the fact it's easier/faster to catalog them that way, most patrons will ask if we have topo maps for a particular state as opposed to asking for a specific sheet.

One good thing about our MARCIVE records is that depository map records are loaded suppressed, so we only unsuppress the records we want to use.  This eliminates a lot of clutter in the catalog (at least on the public side). 

Working in a library that subscribes to MARCIVE's services, I agree that sheet-level records don't help users access current topos. Like Michigan State University, University of Delaware chose to use the state-level serial map records to let users know about the topos we selected and received.

Another problem with sheet-level cataloging is cost.  Without a major reallocation of resources, the FDLP will be unable to catalog online topos fast enough to keep up. There are currently 29201 records in CGP with the SuDoc class number "I 19.81" representing maps cataloged since 1976.  Of these, only 690 include a URL.  When USGS completed the 7.5 minute mapping of the continental US, they announced that there were over 55,000 quadrangles (I don't recall the exact number).  Despite their efforts, GPO staff were not able to catalog every quadrangle.  If USGS delivers updated editions every three years, GPO staff will need to create over 18,000 monographic map records per year to keep up.

The US Topo website links to About US Topo Maps which has a map suggesting that Michigan topos will be produced in 2010 and the third wave of states in 2011. While Michigan topos may not be available yet, other states in the 2010 wave (such as New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas) do have US Topo maps available.

Our problem was we had Marcive records for about a quarter of the Nevada 7.5 minute quads at the sheet level, so the reference librarians were telling patrons if we didn't have a record in our OPAC for that quad, we didn't own it. We also thought if we cataloged our own state quads at the sheet level, the records would be there for other people to use, so we did.
Katherine Rankin
University of Nevada, Las Vegas Libraries

And here at Penn State many years ago in the mid-1990s, under the auspices of Melissa Lamont, the decision was made to set up a project to catalog all of our 7.5-minute topo quads at the sheet level for Pennsylvania (880+ sheets) and then do state-level records for the other 49 states. Melissa and I wrote an article about this "little" adventure, which can be found in Technical Services Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 3, 1998 under the title "Bending the Rules: Creatively Adapting Library Systems to Automate the Map Collection". Remember please...we're talking more than a dozen years ago when "systems" were radically different and not nearly as capable as anything we have at our fingertips today. At the time, we had a homegrown ILS called LIAS that was paired with a serials component from III (Integrative Interfaces), and the workarounds to make this happen and actually provide access to the sheet-edition level was fairly complicated at the time. In addition, we did not provide sheet-level access to non-PA topos, chosing instead to have the patron then go to the paper index to find what they needed specifically (that has changed -- in recent years, using item-level records in Sirsi's Workflows, we now provide access to each sheet for all states). Additionally,we are one of the few institutions that maintain holdings for all states and all editions of the 7.5-minute topos, so you can imagine how labor-intensive this outcome was.

I believe we have used MARCIVE records in the past but not for maps, chosing instead to do all cataloging in-house through the use of OCLC (and cataloging online using OCLC only started happening in 1995 after I arrived here, prior to that we only cataloged in-house), and I've heard and seen both the good and the bad of MARCIVE record content.

Today it may make much more sense to serve up sheet-level records for our map series/sets via an online interface through an index of some sort (interactive would be preferred rather than static images of the old paper indexes, but hey, not everyone has that capability for a variety of reasons either). In Kathleen's case, I believe there is open access to the USGS 7.5-minute topo online indexes (and likely to the other series too) that perhaps she can place a link to on her website and then assist users when needed in finding the correct sheet(s) for their purposes -- without the time and expense of catalog record creation and maintenance.

So, I hold up but one example of how a map collection provided sheet-level access to our state's 7.5-minute topos at an early stage that benefited our patrons probably more then than now, but I do hope continues to provide some level of "here's what we have" benefit even today.

Paige

On 3/29/2011 11:20 AM, ALA Connect wrote:

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