Tony Campbell writes, in response to this post, “I was surprised to see that you hadn’t been using Maps-L. I had taken it for granted that you were on it. I itemise the map lists of which I’m aware at http://www.maphistory.info/lists.html. I’m sure there are others besides those, given that I’m concentrating on historical things.”

I’m in the awkward position of being a generalist who’s interested in maps among other things, rather than a specialist. So I’m trying to keep track of too many things and, as a result, I’m reluctant to sign up at or subscribe to every list and site. I’m currently tracking a number of sites via RSS, and I’m subscribed to MapHist; what other mailing lists do you think are must-reads?

The LA Times’s Susan Spano has a column on the Ordnance Survey. She comes at it from a fairly uncritical, even naïve perspective: this is a rather breathless introduction for novices, not a history of theodolites or a critique of Crown Copyright.

Found another mailing list. MAPS-L:

MAPS-L Maps and Air Photo Systems Forum is an international discussion forum for Librarians dealing with cartographic information, cartographers, remote sensors, geographers, and cartomaniacs of all types. The subject that ties everything together is cartographic information in all its forms, formats and uses.

Topics discussed include anything related to map libraries, cartographic information, remote sensing systems, geography and cartomania in general.

Another look at the digital mapping data providers (i.e., NAVTEQ and TeleAtlas), how they collect their data on the ground, and how it ends up in the hands of Google, Yahoo, et al., from an Associated Press wire story that ended up in the San Diego Union-Tribune. Via GeoCarta.

See previous entries: CNet Profiles TeleAtlas; SF Chronicle: Digital Map Field Researchers; Backcountry Mapping; Online Maps’ Foot Soldiers.

It’s not online, and I don’t have a URL to refer to, but on CBC Ottawa’s local TV news last night, they had a long feature on the federal government’s decision to get out of the business of producing paper topo maps. If you’ve been following this story, there wasn’t much new: they had interviews with the Centre for Topographic Information’s acting director, John Dawson, and World of Maps president Brad Green, who’s been campaigning against the decision.

One wrinkle that I don’t recall being emphasized before was the idea that the government would provide digital data; the private sector would produce the paper maps if there was demand for them. Green’s counter-argument was that there were many regions — in the north in particular — for which accurate topo maps are essential but not financially viable.

See previous entries: Canadian Topo Map Update: Globe and Mail Coverage; Canadian Government Abandoning Paper Topo Maps?

A huge collection of map projections; they’re just outline maps in PDF formats, and there isn’t much in the way of documentation or explanation, but it seems awfully thorough. If you’re looking for a specific — even obscure — map projection, I bet you’ll find it here. Via La Cartoteca.

See previous entries: Map Projection Pages; The Peters Projection; Cartographic Projections: A Primer.

Jeremy Atherton’s page on geocaching with a Mac lists a whole whack of Macintosh-compatible GPS software. Via GPS Review.

Update, 5:08 PM: GPS Review also points to another bit of Mac software: TrailRunner, route planning freeware that apparently supports importing GPS tracklogs and tracklists.

Finally, a geography quiz that isn’t a variant of pointing to a country on an interactive map. This quiz, though, isn’t interactive; it’s simply the online version of a feature that appeared in yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle, so it’s just a list of questions followed by a list of answers. But the answers are refreshingly tough — I’d have to think about some, and probably would get more than a few wrong. Via Gadling.

La Cartoteca is a Spanish-language blog about maps and geography by Alejandro Polanco Masa. I’m always interested in hearing about mapping blogs in languages other than English, even if I can’t understand them myself (I read and speak French, and I have rudimentary German, but that’s about it). Via Cartography.

A few links to maps on environmental (and related) subjects.

• A project by Dutch scientists to measure European air pollution using NASA’s Aura satellite. Some pages in Dutch. Via Treehugger.
• The Center for Sustainability and the Global Enviroment has a set of maps and datasets, including an Atlas of the Biosphere with human-impact, land-use and ecosystem maps. Via Cartography.
• Also via Cartography, the Atlas Climático de la Península Ibérica — a climate atlas of Spain and Portugal.

A few quick links for the Map Site Directory:

Via MapHist, I’ve learned about the British Cartographic Society and its journal, The Cartographic Journal.

ArcDeveloper is a new blog that should be of interest to ESRI GIS developers. Via Spatially Adjusted.

Another geospatial podcast, based in Australia and featuring content from Australia and New Zealand, Where It’s At has reached episode two. iTunes URL. Via Very Spatial.

I’ve created a new Directory page: it’s a combination of my old Communities page, which listed associations, online communities and mailing lists, and my blogroll, which I removed from the sidebar in the last redesign to reduce clutter. I’ll try to keep it reasonably up to date. New listings are welcome and give me fodder for new posts; submit them in the usual place.

Microsoft developer Chandu Thota responds to concerns about how Windows Live Local gets its “Location Finder” data (about which see previous entry) by explaining how it’s done:

Location Finder sends signal strengths and MAC addresses of nearby wireless access points and standard HTTP request information such as your IP address to the Microsoft online location service. The online service calculates the user’s location from a database of known access point locations and returns an approximate longitude and latitude. If this method fails, other methods may be used such as IP address lookup.

Microsoft doesn’t do anything with the location data, he says. Via Boing Boing.

See previous entries: Some Windows Live Local Updates; Windows Live Local Goes Live; Virtual Earth to Become Windows Live Local.

The Texas General Land Office is selling reproductions of antique maps of Texas for as little as $20, an Austin TV station reports. Thanks to Tony Campbell for the link.

I don’t care what Feedburner tells me; there is no way I can have 88,184 readers of my partial RSS feed. (Until yesterday it was reporting a number that fluctuated between 800 and 1,000.) The culprit appears to be My Yahoo!, which reports 87,258 readers today. That can’t be possible; if it’s possible, it can’t represent regular readership.

Today’s New York Times has a feature about the New York Public Library’s $5-million renovation of its map room, which reopens Thursday as the Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division. The map room touts itself as the public library with the largest collection of maps (nearly 420,000 of them) and, despite recent concerns about map thefts, the maps, some of which date back to the sixteenth century, are accessible to the public. Thanks to Joel for the link.

• The Windows Live Local announcements on the Virtual Earth and MSN Search blogs.
• Via Boing Boing, some privacy concerns regarding where Microsoft gets its “Location Finder” data were raised on the Geowanking mailing list.
• James Fee is disappointed with the bird’s-eye view: “I know people say it is good to help reference themselves when they get to an intersection or such, but personally I would have rather seen Microsoft put more money into better satellite imagery, than this 45 degree angle view as it has been implemented.”

Frank Bisono and Jaron Brass have managed to take a look at the Google Earth OS X preview that seems to be making the rounds; both have dual or quad G5 Power Macs, so naturally they report good performance. Commenters on the TUAW post have (a) posted a link to the download and (b) reported that it runs on 1-GHz-G4 class hardware (“Works fine for me, though the age of my system is showing.”), which was something I was wondering about. Via Ogle Earth. (Ironically, Stefan said he’d be reducing his posting frequency unless some major news — such as Google Earth for OS X — presented itself. Be careful what you wish for.)

See previous entry: Google Earth for OS X Being Developed: AppleInsider.

Update, 10:45 PM: Stefan’s notes after playing with it: “First impression: It works very well for a prerelease and it’s as impressive as when I saw Google Earth on the PC for the first time.”

In other Google News: Google Transit, which seems to be an in-house mashup of Google Maps and public transit data. It calculates costs and displays bus and rail routes and times; the examples give some idea of the parameters you can enter: not only addresses, but also leave-at/arrive-by times. Portland, Oregon only at the moment, with more presumably to follow. Not yet Safari compatible (sigh). Via Google Blog; see also WorldChanging.

Mac rumour site AppleInsider claims that a long-hoped-for OS X version of Google Earth is under development: “Earlier this month, a pre-release version of Google Earth for Mac OS X that uses OpenGL rendering reportedly began making the rounds overseas. The 40MB application packs a hefty set of preferences, allowing users to tweak detail and color, and control the speed of their ‘flights.’”

No indication or guess as to release date, but there are screenshots.

Those of you unfamiliar with Mac rumour sites should be aware that a rumour site reporting something does not necessarily make it true. Even so, Google did promise a Mac version; it’s just a matter of when. (Taps feet impatiently.)

Windows Live is Microsoft’s repackaging of its web services, and Windows Live Local is to Virtual Earth what Google Local (see previous entry) is to Google Maps. (Or have I got that backwards?)

Anyway, Windows Live Local went live this morning. Unfortunately I’ve got a pile of errands to do today, so I couldn’t give it more than a cursory run-through. It does not work in Safari (there’s a surprise), but it does work in Firefox. Presumably it works even better in IE, but I’m not able to test that at the moment.

Bird’s-eye images are available for a few locations — about 25 per cent of the U.S., according to the Directions article announcing the launch — but their implementation, again, at least in my brief test using Firefox, is a little wonky. The images do not appear to be fluid or scrollable in the way that the aerial imagery and maps are, and occasionally I click on the icon that says “There is Bird’s Eye imagery available for this location” and get a notice that says it isn’t. I’ll chalk that up to beta status and the fact that it’s only day one. Stuff happens. On the location I tested — Boston — there are two levels of zoom in the bird’s-eye imagery.

More eventually.

Update, 8:45 AM: All Points Blog covers the launch; Adena notes the clunkiness and takes some (deserved) shots at the “Live Local” name.

Update, 9:45 AM: Cartography calls the bird’s-eye-view stuff “more interesting than useful” and also has this to say: “Unfortunately, Live Local doesn’t succeed in the basics of online mapping: finding addresses. Searching for addresses in the United States is no problem but anything beyond its borders fails miserably.”

A new version of Virtual Earth, to be renamed Windows Live Local, is due to be released imminently if not later today. The release apparently includes the oblique (bird’s-eye) imagery that made such a stir when Virtual Earth was previewed last spring (see previous entry). Updates to follow as needed.

Update, 4:45 PM: More from yesterday’s article in PC World (via Chandu Thota).

Kathryn Cramer points to a USGS “ShakeMap” of the magnitude-6.8 earthquake that struck the Lake Tanganyika region today, and has provided a Google Earth overlay of it as well.

This was my first exposure to the USGS ShakeMaps site, which provide maps of major earthquakes around the world; there’s an extensive archive. Noting for future reference.

According to a press release in October, a $4-million donation to Western Michigan University will establish a Center for the Study of Geographic Change, the purpose of which will be to digitize older maps and aerial photographs. “Geographic change” is a phrase I’m not familiar with, but presumably has something to do with comparing the current (or more recent) state of things with the (more distant) past through maps and photography — i.e., it sounds a lot like one aspect of history. In any event, it appears that the main goal is preservation, which is never bad. Thanks to Tony for the link.

If you’re reading this, you probably like maps, and quite likely can read them without much effort. So it might be easy to forget that map literacy isn’t necessarily a given, but it is important. Why Some Students Have Trouble with Maps and Spatial Representations is a tutorial for college-level geoscience instructors that looks at spatial abilities — by which, I think, they mean the capacity to extrapolate the real world from maps, models and the like. Reading a map, in other words. There’s a lot of research summarized and a lot of examples given, with implications for teaching the geosciences — which need spatial abilities the way that literature needs literacy — as well as more basic map reading (including topo maps). Via MapHist.

The International Herald Tribune looks at the disconnect between the official maps handed out by the Russian authorities to foreign businesses, with gridlines diverging from true north and the latitudes and longitudes blotted out, with the relative ease that the same obfuscated sites can be viewed with Google Earth. A look at the FSB’s ongoing mania for security and how it’s now as much a means to protect Russia from foreign businesses as it once was to protect it from foreign missiles. Via GeoCarta.

See previous entries: BP, Russian Security and Large-Scale Maps; Maps as State Secrets.

Yesterday’s Grauniad featured a review of three mapping books with a heavy emphasis on the art of cartography: Charles Booth’s 1889 Descriptive Map of London Poverty, a London Topographical Society reprint that for some reason isn’t on their site; Peter Whitfield’s new Cities of the World: A History in Maps, which collects maps and panoramas from 60 cities; and the Taschen reprint of Blaeu’s Atlas Maior (see previous entry). The article is accompanied by a map gallery with samples from all three books; don’t miss that.

• Buy Atlas Maior at Amazon.com
• Buy Cities of the World: A History in Maps at Amazon.com

Opening today in Vienna, the Globe Museum of the Austrian National Library at its new digs in the refurbished Palais Mollard. The collection of more than 400 globes, 240 of which are on display, includes early modern globes by Mercator, Blaeu and Coronelli. Apparently the collection was only open an hour a day in its earlier location (a tour of which described here); happily, it’s now much more accessible — assuming, of course, that Vienna is accessible to you. Via Zsolt Török on MapHist; he managed to visit the museum before its opening and has some photos (including the one stolen to illustrate this post).

India doesn’t seem to want to leave Google alone: after complaining about the satellite data in Google Earth, the Indian government is back to complaining about the labelling of Kashmir (via GeoCarta). See previous entries: Google Earth: Indian Reactions, Google Earth and Disputed Borders and Names.

Meanwhile, the Christian Science Monitor takes a look at the controversy over countries objecting to Google’s easily available satellite images (via Ogle Earth). See previous entry: Google Earth Privacy and Security Roundup.

The Australian government makes satellite imagery, geology maps (1:250,000 scale) and spatial data available free of charge. Via Glenn’s GISUser Weblog.

See previous entry: Satellite Images and the Weather.

A Virtual Earth Dashboard Widget for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, and a tutorial explaining how it was done.

See previous entries: More Widgets; Houston Traffic Widget; Dashboard Widgets.

Cartography has an update on John Davies’s research into clandestine Soviet mapping, and points to a collection of World War II era Soviet maps.

See previous entries: Soviet Spies Map the World; Soviet Topo Maps; Old Russian Maps.

Landsat data in MrSid format, from Landsats 4 and 5 in 1990 and Landsat 7 in 2000, from NASA’s Applied Sciences Directorate. Via All Things Geography.

Meanwhile, Landsat 5 is apparently experiencing technical difficulties. Via Very Spatial.

Screenhead draws our attention to this ad for Google Maps (QuickTime), which is almost certainly not legit, but rather a production done on spec by a firm. Still. Giggle away.