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‘The Death of the Paper Map’
On the occasion of the CSAA’s announcement that it’s getting out of the business of publishing paper maps, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Caille Millner has this to say:
I am saddened, but not surprised, about the death of the paper map, about its slow-but-sure eclipse by Mapquest and GPS and all of these other digitized forms that allow people to persist in their delusions: their delusions that the only “starting points” and “destinations” that matter are the ones relevant to their immediate needs, their delusions that the only purpose of a map is to decide where you should turn right or left. And when the time comes when an insistence on using paper maps, and globes, and atlases draws the frustration and impatience of other people, leads them to believe that the person in question is “out of touch” or failing to “keep up with the times” or “slowing us down,” then I will gladly take up those mantles, and you had best hope that others do too.
Take it from someone who is far less emotional about this subject than I am: Curt Sumner, the executive director for the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping. “There are a lot of uses for which just data, digitized map data, are OK,” he told me. “It’s just not good for every use.” When I asked him for a few examples of where digitized data was creating headaches for the professional surveyors he represents, he offered small examples like water lines, fire patterns, and right-of-way property rights. He mentioned that his organization had a rider on a bill in Congress “going forward right now” to require the preservation of documentation of monuments that show right-of-way access (railroad tracks, for instance) because “when the old maps get destroyed, there’s no way to determine who has the right of way.” Then there the “engineers and fire departments, who really need more accurate information than what’s stored on geographic information systems. You know, to build infrastructure.” He added that many “official” centers for maps — county recorders’ offices around the country, for instance — are in the process of digitizing their maps, and not all of the old maps are being kept.
Previously: CSAA Getting Out of the Paper Map Business; Why Paper Maps Are Still Produced; The Decline of the Paper Map; Decline of the Road Map.
Update: Chad adds an interesting point to the paper maps question, in the context of using a GPS: “What do you do if you get no signal, or your batteries run out, or it breaks?”
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@ Chad …
“What do you do if you get no signal, or your batteries run out, or it breaks?”
Yes, true. But what if you lose your map, or it’s destroyed by natural elements, or it’s outdated?
I too struggle to make a good case for the paper map.
To me, the biggest, most important distinction between the two has always been the canvas. I’d imagine that everyone would agree that reading an analog map is a vastly different experience than reading a digital one. However, perhaps it’s not the canvas, but the type of process involved — composition and production behind the two types.
These two have vastly different production techniques: the digital medium produced by programming, and the paper map produced by the program. Each end of this spectrum has its own flavor.
The dynamic, programmed map will inherently interpret data based on hard, global rules. Digital maps can always be tweaked (as long as the programming is solid). Because of this factor, the likelihood of a consistent, well-thought-out user interface is not as likely in comparison to the paper map, where pre-planning is inherent, and consistency in design is implicit.
On the other hand, digitally designed maps are completely consistent in their capacity to deliver relevant information as needed. This is something that only a digital medium could allow for, obviously. And this is why most people think that digital maps are the future.
But that’s just one end of the spectrum. The analog map has as compelling an argument for it’s medium as the information delivery argument is for digital.
The paper map does something that a digital map cannot: Limits must be imposed. There are time, design, production, spatial, and political constraints that tell a different story. The paper map will always be the official document, the PDF of the digital map.
It’s for this reason why there will always be paper maps. You can’t make a record of dynamic media, it’s antithetical. My concern is that paper maps won’t be available to the general public (who don’t need them on a day-to-day basis), and that they will be slightly more difficult to consume (if only for enjoyment).
The other argument for the paper map is that it is tangible. The owner of the paper map “owns” the map, and it becomes a more special union during the read. This is the demand that is necessary to keep paper maps on the market. You don’t own a digital map, it’s ownerless. Paper maps, it’s yours, you can make your own inscriptions and changes with ease.
Soon enough, the two media may converge when digital paper arrives, and I can only assume that this discussion will become more complicated.