Lyle,

This announcement was made at the American Library Association (ALA) meeting last month. (below)



Thought you would like to know.

Diane



Diane T. Schug-O'Neill

Digital Conversion Specialist

Geography & Map Division

Library of Congress



Views expressed in this email are mine and do

not necessarily express Library policies.





-----Original Message-----


*Hello all,*



*MAGERT/CCS Cataloging of Cartographic Resources Interest Group** **ALA Annual, New Orleans, LA** **Sunday, June 26, 2011*



Report by Louise Ratliff

About 23 people attended the Interest Group meeting at ALA Annual in New Orleans.



*Announcement *by Richard Huffine, director of the USGS Library Program.

[Editor Note: After the conference, I asked Richard to summarize his announcement, included here.]



"The U.S. Geological Survey's National Geospatial Program has almost completed their efforts to digitize and georeference all of the topographic maps the Bureau has produced since the beginning of their mapping program in 1885. The total number of maps is estimated at around 200,000 and it includes all scales, all editions of their topographic map series. In addition to releasing the digitized maps, the Bureau has produced metadata records for each map in the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) standard. The FGDC records can be converted to MARC bibliographic records using MARCEdit and other readily available tools.

These digitized editions of historic topographic quadrangle maps are being distributed to the public via the USGS Store (store.usgs.gov) Map Locator and Downloader Tool. All digital distribution of maps from the USGS are free to the public. In addition to these historic maps, the USGS is producing new 7.5 minute topographic quadrangles in new digital formats that include an aerial photography layer. These new maps are called "US Topos" that the USGS has developed a three-year cycle for producing these new maps for the entire conterminous United States. US Topos also have an FGDC record that can be used to create a bibliographic record for library catalogs. "



He asked about what level of bibliographic records people wanted, and a brief discussion followed of how best to catalog these in order to provide access but not unduly clutter the catalog. Separate records would number 200,000 records! Some people mentioned they should be serial cartographic records. A copy of each digitized map is stored at LC , and the USGS Library Program is considering putting copies of the digital resources into the Hathi Trust.







-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lyle E. Browning
Sent: Saturday, July 09, 2011 9:38 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Schools, maps and labels



Hi,



Thanks for the info. I'd seen that USGS was scanning their quads. They're already available on CD from the VA Div of Mineral Resources as Pub 173, but don't appear to be geo-referenced. It would be really great if they were in shapefile or otherwise digitized format rather than flat maps, but one lives in hope.





Lyle Browning



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