Map Collection Users' Group

Minutes of meeting on Friday 26 May 2000

1. Attendance

Richard Pennell - Chair, Priscilla Stott, John Cain (Map Curator), Ray Wyatt, John Maidment.

2. Apologies

Susan Bray, Bernie Joyce, Francisco Escobar, Brendan Whyte, Kate O'Brien, Chandra Jayasuriya.

3. Minutes of the Previous Meeting

The minutes were accepted.

4. Business Arising

4.1 Free Geology of Victoria: CDs from GSV: GSV have supplied these and are also promising a new and improved version shortly.
4.2 Digital Mapping Data seminar: There was some discussion of the possibility of running a seminar on the digital mapping holdings of the Map Section during a quiet time of the year. Richard suggested possibly as a summer school? To be discussed further at the next meeting.

5. 2000 Action Plan

John Cain reported briefly on the progress the main objectives in the plan.
Equipment: This has now arrived, including four new cabinets, 16 new cabinet bases and new atlas shelving for rare atlases. Removalists relocated 35 map cabinets within the Section; the new arrangement is much more efficient (and much neater). They also installed the 16 new map cabinet bases; all map cabinets now have bases which is good both from a health and safety point of view (bottom drawers do not scrape on the carpet) and a conservation point of view if a flood occurs.
Weeding: With arrival of the cabinets weeding of the normal sized single maps (M) was able to start and this is now about a quarter of the way through. So far on average about 20% of maps are being withdrawn. Half of these are duplicates, which are discarded, the other half are being put aside for possible assessment by any interested academic staff later in the year.
Signage: Along with the relocation of cabinets and weeding, efforts are being made to improve the signage in the collection, both the relabelling of individual drawers (50% complete) and signs overall.
Digital Mapping: see items 6 and 7.

6. Access to Digital Map Data

John Cain reported that discussion with academic staff so far showed that the need is more for information about data rather than direct online access to digital mapping data; in many cases databases are much too large for online transfer anyway. The Section's digital mapping data holdings are all catalogued in Innopac, but it is not always easy for users to locate them here.

After discussion, the meeting supported the enhancement of catalogue records in Innopac for digital mapping data using Metadata supplied by the data vendors, where available. It was also agreed that a web page briefly listing digital mapping data holdings, with links to the catalogue records on Innopac, would also be a useful way of making the data more accessible.

Ray put forwards the idea of a "super scanner" which with appropriate software would enable hardcopy maps to be scanned and automatically converted into a GIS-ready format. There would be copyright implications in some cases, but some options in this regard will be assessed.

7. Report on Walker Collection Digitisation

Another 24 map images (from the A4 sized maps) have been added, bring the total number of Walker maps now available online to 52. The new interface is now available, displaying brief information about the maps along with the images and providing a link to the full bibliographic record on Innopac. Further development of the interface is underway, to allow enhanced zooming and support panning. It is hoped the entire collection will be online by August.

8. Additions to the Collection

Some of the more noteworthy recent arrivals in the collection include:

• VicMap Digital Property, VicMap Digital Topographic, VicMap Digital Roads - highly detailed digital mapping in GIS-ready format for MapInfo and ArcView, on an educational license from the Victorian government (total approximately 4 gigabytes of data).
• Public View - updated by Land Victoria with the latest VicMap Digital Property data, to April 2000. Provides property mapping for the whole of Victoria.
  
• Australia Post Postcodes digital map data - detailed digital map of postcodes for the whole of Australia, on an educational license permitting use in for research and teaching in labs.
  
• Australia present (1988) vegetation digital map data - on an educational license.
  
• Australia historic (pre-European) vegetation digital map data - on an educational license.

9. Departmental Map Needs (standing item).

This item provides MCUG members and other persons with an opportunity to inform the Map Section of maps, geographic or spatial information that may be required for future teaching or research. There were no specific requests at this time though a range of requests have been received and ordered recently. The scanning of the Walker maps was supported.

10. Other Business

10.1 Maps reading area: Richard Pennell requested that something be done about students using the maps reading area as though it is a cafeteria. John Cain responded that he expects the problem to decrease when Hawthorn eventually moves into the ERC. In the meantime he agreed to place some more prescriptive notices on the tables.
10.2 Photocopiers: Richard Pennell noted that on weekends and after hours all too often most of the photocopiers in the ERC are out of order and there are long queues at the few that are working. John Cain agreed to pass this comment on to Susan Bray to see what action could be taken.

11. Next meeting.

The next meeting will be at 2:30 pm on Wednesday 6 September, 2000 in ERC Seminar Room 2.

John Cain, 26 May 2000. e:\maps\mcug\2000may-mi.doc