MapHist CD-Rom ISSN 1385-1543
Out of the Frame?MapHist CD-Rom ISSN 1385-1543 |
Out of the Frame? |
Because of lack of time, no new version is made since the 1994-2001 version. If you want to order a copy of this old cd-rom, write Peter van der Krogt. From 2002 on the monthly files and zipped yearly files are on the archives page.
Since a CD-Rom has a lot of space, the discussion are cumulative stored on the CD-Rom, so you need only the last one.
All messages are in chronological order, headed by an order number (to facilitate references to earlier messages), the name of the sender, the date and the subject. The texts of the messages are seldom edited--some typos are corrected, some accents added and emphasized words are printed in italics. When the sender used the reply button and the original message is included, I have removed this. Not included on the CD-Rom are requests to (un)subscribe, wrongly posted (personal) messages, junk mail, and some of the endless discussions on viruses and attachments.
For MapHist subscribers the pages on the CD-Rom will look familiar. For the reader unfamiliar with MapHist, a few words of clarification are in order. The CD-Rom pages are a printed record of online 'conversations', arranged chronologically in the order the messages were posted. As such, questions and answers are sometimes separated by unrelated topics. (Just keep reading!) This may be unnerving in print, but it is one of the delights of cyberconversations. The eclectic, kaleidoscopic form of the topics has a certain charm of its own. We are capturing words and thoughts in space, sometimes as they are created, and not necessarily after they have been thought through, or even massaged and edited for purity, accuracy, scholarship. These conversations reflect the immediacy of shared information online.
If you want more information on a topic, online addresses are usually in the text, or open queries can be sent to
maphist@geo.uu.nl
(
attention! Messages to this
address are automatically distributed to over 700 people)
The MapHist CD-Rom will be especially valuable for those whose home institutions/networks do not allow unlimited hoarding of text files, for those who are not online, and for those who donþt relish getting sand in their laptops.... [With thanks to Alice Hudson for this nice piece of prose.]
Tony Campbell: "This will be a very valuable record, both of valuable information and (occasionally) stimulating ideas, and of where the subject was at a particular time. It is certainly something that all serious map collections should have."
David Cobb: "I ... am dumbfounded! I ... must sit back, pause, and reflect on this ambitious effort that Peter has begun"
Ed Dahl: "Fascinating"
Matthew Edney: "I am truly amazed at your diligence [insanity? :)]!"
Alice Hudson: "I am speechless, although I know you don't believe that... I can hand it to a reader without having to bring them in to my office to sit at my computer. It saves me having to find my folders and print out the stuff for readers... terrific.".
This effort was well received, so he repeated the effort in "MapHist 1995." This time there were 737 messages. Then along came 1996. Peter was faced with producing a book containing 1535 messages. The thin 1994 volume had grown to a thick treatise. The one line index for "MapHist 1996" alone required twenty pages of three column text. Clearly the project was turning into a monster, and 1997 was to be even larger.
Peter and his brother put their heads together. Here they had an invaluable distillation of the best brains in the world when it came to maps but to distribute it by the same methods used by Gutenberg seemed impossible. Suddenly it dawned on them. Each member of the list had a computer. Why not use a method which took advantage of the Best Available Technology? And so, the MapHist CD-ROM was born.
The advantages of the CD-ROM format quickly became apparent. Not only could Peter offer the new messages collected for 1997 but the same CD-ROM could hold ALL of the previous three years messages as well. Then by using a simple Acrobat + Search Program, which can be downloaded from the same CD-ROM, the viewer can search the entire 1994 through 1997 database in one step. Type in a keyword and find all references using that word on MapHist over the last four years. Mind boggling, to say the least.
Want to print a hard copy? No problem, they're all there chronologically or by subject, one page at a time or all pages. And the text format is very readable using color to highlight headings and links.
OK, now that we have you properly salivating, how can you get your hands on this absolutely invaluable item? Obviously something like this could be expected to carry a hefty pricetag, can anyone other than the British Library actually afford to own a copy? We're happy to advise we think the price is totally reasonable. Peter and his brother have treated this as a labor of love, donating their time and purchasing their own CD writer so this could be done. Your cost for this monumental work is, take your pick, 25 United States Dollars, 15 British Pounds, or 50 Dutch Guilders. Total. Including postage and handling. No extras. No VAT or sales tax. We all owe a debt of gratitude to Peter for this effort. It represents an incredible amount of time just indexing the several thousand messages. I don't know how many times in the last several years I have referred back to the hardcopies and wished they were indexed together. Now they are.
I'm extremely proud to have had a very small part in helping Peter with this project. Peter's quiet effort reminds me of what William Mulholland said as he opened the valve sending water from the 300 mile long Los Angeles aqueduct project spilling into a parched desert basin which would later grow to a metropolitan area of 20 million people, "Take it. It's yours."
Bill Warren