Dear Huw,

But what proportion of all map users are those who use historical data?
Can we determine this as a proportion of all users of OS data? Of course
a high proportion of those who come into your library are interested in
historical research; they probably wouldn't be there otherwise, just as
people don't come to my web-site unless they're interested in
Antarctica. In both cases, the audience is self-selecting. What are the
sales of the historical publications you refer to compared with those of
standard OS products? I am well aware of the importance of historical
data to developers; my mother has been caught in a difficult situation
precisely because developers and planning agencies didn't refer to
historical material. Her house was built on the site of an old gas
works, and the soil is polluted with all sorts of nasty things. The
situation has developed into a legal tangle over liability. The gasworks
are clearly marked on old OS maps; it requires only general knowledge to
realize there would be a problem! Similarly, during the floods a couple
of years ago, several new houses in my village were flooded; a little
historical research would have shown that the land was liable to
flooding - but no-one did the research. So, though I admit the NEED for
historical research, I am sceptical about how widespread its practise
is! Like a lot of things, I suspect that larger developers will check
these things out; smaller ones will trust to luck and go bankrupt when
their luck runs out!

In my admittedly unusual situation, I can readily show that Antarctic
map users use more digital information than otherwise, or at least the
numbers are on a par with each other (the figures for the previous year
(June 2005- June 2006) for digital information are: new users 617 from
55 countries; Items of data  4244 from 41 countries; Vistors to site
8734). As a large print run for us is 2000 maps, you can see that the
use of digital information far outstrips the supply of printed maps; and
there is no indication that we are not fully meeting the need for
printed maps.

Thanks for holding off on the faggots!

Paul

>>> [log in to unmask] 13 June 2006 14:38 >>>
Paul,

I'm afraid I must pick you up on one point you made in your reply to 
April. You suggest that users of historical mapping "are as small a
user 
base as are my equally specialized users of Antarctic data", this is
not 
so; both commercial and leisure users use historical mapping a great 
deal. For example the building industry carry out a lot of site
searches 
into the history of a site before undertaking building work, and if
they 
don't you can be sure the legal profession will. Leisure users carry
out 
lots of research into family or building history using maps.  It is 
certain that here at the NLW the vast majority of our map users come to

look at historical mapping. This is in fact a growing market; if this 
were not so companies like Alan Godfrey would not be publishing so many

printed facsimile OS maps to sell to the public; nor would so much 
effort have been put in to digitising old OS maps, by people like 
Landmark or the BGS, for sale online.
I think it unwise to extrapolate a trend from a highly specialised and

in mapping terms unusual (due to the general lack of a built 
environment) area of research, such as Antarctic data. I can readily
see 
why current information is much more useful than out-of-date
information 
in this case.

I shall hold off on the faggots for now!

Huw


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