teeny tiny blog

My first map meeting. Very exciting. And maybe a little of this too.

I finished up my dual life this week. From now on: it's full time in maps. It was a bit anti-climactic. But here's an update:

I was left to myself this week as the air photo tech went on vacation. My suspicion that the research service is now more than one person can handle seems to be accurate--without students to help, I would have been helpless. I'd say another halftime person is needed to make things comfortable.

Tonight I found a couple more map library historical documents: including some memos about moving the facility into the main library. It was only summer of 2000! For some reason I thought it was longer than that.

A nice interface for (MrSID? JPEG 2k?) large scans, combined with some compelling content makes this University of Chicago project very enjoyable. And if you ever had black & white Mac, looking at these maps will show you where Apple stole all of its original textures from. I think they were actually pre-printed Kodalith sheets that would get cut out and assemble into the map. Not sure though.

The interface for the images is handled by Zoomify, which works under Flash.

More than any other type of reference I've ever done, the distance between the initial request and what the person is actually looking for is the greatest. Many times, the person isn't looking for a map. Well, even that's not accurate. They're looking for a map, but it might not be one that we have. Or it might be one that's inside of a reference book.

These folks have been busy. All html pages too. Think it's all static or is this a data dump?

Unfortunately, it's all mrSID--no georeferencing.

I learned this morning that the first map librarian here was a conscientious objector to World War II. How cool is that?

And how weird is it that I'm now doing the job. I haven't given very much thought to the fact that most of my materials come from military projects. At least I'm not using them to drop bombs on people.

I have been starting to form an opinion that the map library could easily double its storage capacity and only achieve 'everything fits comfortably.'

This past week I asked my boss if he knows of a standard for how full a drawer should be. "Oh, I think that's in that pile of files I gave you. When I found it, I did some calculations and estimated that we'd need 14,000 square feet to meet the standard."

We currently hover just over 5000 square feet.

I never have been able to judge volumes. When putting away leftover soup, I always have about a half cup still in the pot when I'm topping off the tupperware.