Policy Issues in Modern Cartography

Modern cartography, as the two earlier volumes of this series on Geographic Information Systems: The Microcomputer and Modern Cartography (Taylor, 1991), and Visualization in Modern Cartography (MacEachren and Taylor, 1994) illustrate, is deeply interested in the technological advances of the information revolution and their impact on the discipline and profession. The vast majority of the growing literature in recent years has dealt with some aspect of technological change. The driving forces of the information era are developments in computer technology and related developments in satellites and telecommunications and these forces have had a fundamental impact on all aspects of cartography. It is understandable that the attention of cartographers has been focussed on technological change, especially in a situation where the speed of that change is so rapid. The half life of knowledge in some areas can now be measured in months, rather than years, and cartographers have been fully occupied with the struggle to adapt to rapidly changing technological circumstances. Computer technologies are now so all pervasive that there is little cartography without them and earlier terms such as digital cartography, automated cartography or computer assisted cartography which emerged in the 1960s and 70s are now anachronistic. What can be described as obsession with technological change has, in the last two decades in particular, led to a relatively narrow "technologized" normative and formalistic approach to cartography and to the relative neglect of the consideration of a wide range of policy issues which are imbedded in the societal context in which modern cartography finds itself. It is to a discussion of policy issues that this book hopes to make a contribution. As with the technology of the information revolution, the policy issues involved are not unique to cartography but several key policy issues are of

D. R. Fraser Taylor
... The book clearly lays out the pros and cons.
Euro Abstracts, Vol. 37, no. 1
Jean-Marie Dubois
The general focus of this collective study is the impact of the information technology revolution on modern cartography including such topics as publication and information distribution policies, incorporating author rights and intellectual property issues. There are very different approaches to these problems and this is what the editor of the publication wished to illustrate by inviting specialists from various countries to participate. These people offer a vision of the majority of the great established policies concerning cartography as much from a government point of view as from that held by a private company or academic organisation.......The publication is very well edited.....This work really makes one reflect on the future not only in terms of the subject matter and approach of cartography, but also in terms of the use of data itself.
Canadian Geography