Historical Topographic Map Collection- Distribution of USGS Maps- Old and New
[Music]
Greg Allord: OK. Thank you. I'm here to talk about
the Historical Topographic Map Collection that the
USGS is bringing forward and putting online.
What we have is a vast collection of maps that
officially began in IMTA before. I've been to
IMTA before and went through in depth
details some of the processing steps last year,
but more as a reminder of why we're doing this.
USGS does look, with the National Geospatial Program,
we look at it that we have a stewardship responsibility for
these maps. A lot of effort is going into creating these maps.
Also, with the new US Topo map that has been released,
the new-generation electronic map that we have, this
will support the chronological layers on the past.
And again, reasons that we wanted to know, look at
this collection and bring it forward is this is our long-term
record. It's our documentation of the landscape as it has
been since we started mapping in the 1880s.
This gives us the potential for analysis and looking
at what has happened during that time. With all this
vast history, we have multiple time slices that we
could look at, and as well for the scientists and
the non-scientists, the genealogists, the historians,
just people looking at their local history can do this.
So we have 130 years of topographic maps that are highly
accurate, done through a very rigorous scientific level so
that people can look at this and perceive what is there.
And again, part of what we're doing here is creating a
comprehensive catalog of what we have. When we
look back going, oh, 130 years, terms like 'metadata'
didn't exist. There was no concern then. It was a matter
of preparing these maps to support mineral resources,
explorations of the, especially the great West as it
was opening up, so there was no catalog that was there.
All these maps are no longer available for distribution,
the vast majority, and especially as we move to,
as I mentioned, the US Topo electronic generation.
Also, there is no single set known to exist anywhere.
Again, these were made and printed for use, field use, people to use.
The collection was actually the circulating collection,
and then it was locked down a number of years ago
as an archive collection. But by then, some were
out there and they were just never returned and used.
So what we're doing is looking to the USGS collection.
We do have a historical archive. We're starting there,
we're mining it, we're using it. And looking at all
the maps that are there, we estimated that there
will be about 200,000 topographic maps in this collection when we're done.
But we're also working with other libraries,
Library of Congress, different depositories that
are there, to share data and work with them.
Again, to just review and refresh the goals of
this project, we do want to scan the 200,000
maps that we have. All maps, all scales. Every
edition that was there consisted high-quality
standards. Touch these one more time, find them, scan them.
After the metadata, GeoReference, bring them
forward. And again, we'll release to the USGS
Store as well as the National Map Viewer when we get to the next stages.
Complete set of metadata, digital files. Again,
make it comprehensive. We will house copies
of all the electronic files that we're creating both
with the National Archives as well as we're
coordinating with Library of Congress. And
we'll house an extra copy with them. And again,
we're cross-checking and they have maps that
we don't, we have many maps that they do not.
We will then also link with certain libraries
throughout the country and give them any
select segment of our collection that is significant
to them and working with it. And emphasizing
all files will be in the public domain. No holds barred.
Again, we're looking at, what do we have here?
The first use, and I think it's typified here, is
general map users that we want, and for the
public itself. We're releasing the GeoPDF
single-sheet maps, full metadata that you'll
get through the USGS Store.
And this first release that we have is for reference.
It's for download and printing to handle the use
case that we have for people that just wanted to
reacquaint themselves with this collection, find the maps again.
All the maps, as you would imply from the, they
are consistent with the US Topo, their GeoPDF
using TerraGo technology, free tools that you can
download, plugins, and it lets you use them in a
spatial sense also. You can GeoLocate, GeoMeasure,
GeoTrack your information. That's a characteristic.
And again, I mentioned metadata, the comprehensive
information. Anything you can glean from the
map collar is there. It seems like we have many
maps with the same primary date, which we do.
But over the years, they've been reviewed, new
field edits, new printing dates that are there,
as we moved into the '70s and '80s, photo revision, photo verification.
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So this is where you could find out, there's apparently
many maps, though they have the same date.
1895, 1972, there would be four or five. When
you look at the metadata, you can tell the
difference. Also, sometimes we get woodland
prints, no woodland print, and special edition maps that are there.
That's one of the primary things we're finding
with Library of Congress. We checked with the
State of Virginia, ours against theirs, and we
had an extra 1,000 maps that they had that we
didn't. It turned out that there were many special
editions with the woodland print not included.
So they had some with woodland print, we had
the ones with no woodland print, vice-versa.
So again, by the special metadata, maybe
more maps out there than we're aware of.
So again, we're looking at the metadata.
The people need this to understand what's
there, and we are including that and attaching
it with the GeoPDFs. So every single map gets
comprehensive metadata about that map.
You can go to the attachment segment, the
GeoPDF, click that, it will open up a browser
window and give you all the FGDC-compliant
metadata in a human-readable format.
Also, we're looking at, what do these maps
need to be in the future? We have them,
they're static, like I said, you can look at them,
you can print them, but people are now
embracing the GeoPDF format and they're
coming up with different viewer technologies.
Some of them would be, you can take many of
the maps if they've been prepared to this
capability, strip the collar, panel them together in a seamless view.
So we've included the map frame in the header
of all of our GeoPDFs looking at this future
technology that military is establishing. It's now
coming into the private sector. You will be able
to handle these maps together on your own
with your own software that is there.
We also understand that GeoPDF is part of the
segment for the general reference user, people
who want to print it. But the geographers, the
spatial analysts, the people that use GIS software,
they want more. They don't want just a GeoPDF;
they want to bring it into their layer for analysis.
And that's why the next phase of this project
will be taking the full resolution files that we
have in TIFF format with the GeoReference
capability, reference files there so you can bring
them into your own GIS, as well as looking in a
map view or downloading directly from map.
So again, examples of why the spatial analysts
wanted these things. The example that I pulled is
change over time for river impoundments. Lake Cumberland,
Kentucky, it is a series of maps that I happen to
have here, that when the impoundment was
created, people want to come in and look at
pre- and post-impoundment.
We have one research group come to us and say
that they had, it was about 140 lakes across the
country, and from our existing records, they had
found about 400 map editions that they wanted
to pull from the library to look at to understand
pre- and post-impoundment conditions.
Well, what we did here was we actually looked
at the map cells, the standard 15-minute, or the
seven-and-a-half-minute cells that we've had for
Lake Cumberland. I did a simple extraction of
the 15-minute maps, 625, so I covered six cells.
We could start looking at that, or 15 cells
for the seven-and-a-half-minute maps.
And then again, you could start looking at the
collection here, that it goes all the way back to
1914, obviously pre-impoundment. For Lake
Cumberland, 625, 15-minute map. There is also
a 1954 map and a 1978 map. It starts to give
you this chronological layer that I mentioned.
Well, also, when you look at it, though, you need
to look at the maps to understand it. You would
just assume, and presume, that, OK, the oldest
would have pre-impoundment information, the newest wouldn't.
In this case, the 1954 edition showed the shoreline only,
but in 1978, they went back and printed the contour plate
back on the map. Again, it's kind of a reprint of that area,
but they put the contours, which really gives you the
detrimental view of this so you can understand the
pre-impoundment land surface, what's underneath
the water surface at that lake. We'll find it again.
And again, I mentioned this company wanted 130 lakes,
they had found 400 maps. By the time we were done,
we gave them 1,400 maps. Again, looking at the collection,
understanding the differences that are there.
Again, we understand that there are users, they just want
to have access to all the maps, special editions, special
projects. They're just curious what's there, they want
to browse them, or they do want the GeoTIFFs or they want the GeoPDFs.
So this is kind of a future step. We are in the process
of creating a map gallery where you can just go in and
look at these maps and get a view of what's there,
do a general search, have them all portrayed to you
so you can look at just the visual characteristics of the
map and then start to make your selection for what you want.
Also then, you can understand these are
enlargements. Are they special editions, special purpose?
What's their unusual conditions, characteristics?
But again, you're going to want to be able to browse
and get the visual richness of these maps.
Part of the process we're doing that had gone
in-depth in the past is the GeoReferencing.
What we're doing is using every control point
that's ever been printed on the map, 16, 45
control points per map, looking at those, finding
your control points, and referencing the term
coordinates within the accuracy of the original
maps. So we're feeling that whatever the original
National Map accuracy standard was in that era,
that we are retaining that and bringing it forward.
Again, the rollout, kind of a status part of this talk,
is that we announced the existence of the product
in January, this collection. We started to load
up the first GeoPDFs at the National Map User's
Conference in May to look at it.
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Well, in the last month, walking to the USGS Store,
we have 90,000 maps loaded now. So we're
about halfway. And that's why we're using
this venue for our rollout, that the critical
mass is there for GeoPDFs that we will keep going.
And again, this website, we'll touch on it in
a minute, this will be there for reference,
but this also gives you the information
about not only what states had been done,
total number of maps by scale. So you could
see the 124,000 is a very rich set of maps. There's 69,303 there.
So again, this gives it by scale and vintage,
and the standard cells had been done. Again,
we're doing the standard cell that is there. As
I was showing you, some are older special
editions. Things like that will pull those into
the second round bring those forward.
So that's where we are, just about the helm.
A better view of this in graphic view, the green states are what's done.
The first edition loads are there for all the
green states. It used to be the project, we're
going which year we'd be viewing it. The
most common question we get is, 'When do I get my state?'
So if you look at it down at the bottom, again,
this map is on the website, this Fall, we're doing
all the states in yellow. This Winter,
Winter is in Wisconsin. We'll be doing it there,
and that will be the blue states. Then in
Spring we'll add a few more, and by Summer
we'll finish off Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico,
Trust Territories, Virgin Islands in the map.
And again, this schedule is up on the Web.
It breaks it up by state name, by season when
we intend to be done with the first round.
We're also starting the special editions for all
these states, the non-standard maps, and
we'll start rolling those out early 2012.
Again, there's many things that you can do,
and I encourage you to look at it. In fact, we've
got half a dozen here. So you'll see this, OK, the oldest maps.
California. There were three of them in 1886.
So looking at which is the oldest year is part
of the formal topographic mapping program.
California had three, 1:250,000. Small scale covering a large area.
And then you can start to look at the history of
why did we do mapping in that area? What was
going on? Well, California, I know the
Gold Rush, they were trying to get an overview
of national reconnaissance, so they drew a
smaller scale, large areas, but there were three
maps there. So it's leading toward the fact in
1886, you had three, the next year you had
a lot more because they were rolling forward.
The program officially began in 1884 in the
state of Massachusetts topographic mapping.
So these were coming out fairly well.
Colorado's oldest map, we found this, 1886.
Sometimes you have to stop and look at
the quality of what is there, the craftsmanship that went into this.
But in this case, we will be looking for a better
edition. It is this one that just over time we've
lost pieces of the map. We've also lost a corner.
That's a critical GeoReference point.
We can extrapolate; we don't want to do that.
We'll be going and putting out a website saying,
"We have maps that are not optimal.
Does somebody..." after we go through Library
of Congress, other map libraries that we
partnered with. But we'll be looking for
better copies. We are going through and
releasing them as is, knowing that
improvements can be there down the road.
OK, Idaho. Again, 1892. Several years later,
I mentioned California, 1:250,000,
these are 1:125,000. Double the scale.
They're 30 by 30-minute maps and they're
starting to come out looking at resources
in Idaho. So as the program matured,
they started moving to a larger scale.
Indiana, well, 1900, a few years later, but
they've also dropped to 15-minute maps,
625, and reduced that. So again, you can
look at the time vintage of this and understand,
you go back, again, why did we do the topographic maps?
Kentucky. 1886, 125,000. But Kentucky had a
very robust program as a state. They even
have their own mapping office down there before
USGS. They have many editions. Very rich history of maps there.
Maryland, well, right to 625 early on, 1886.
Very populated area, so they went to a larger scale.
Minnesota, the oldest map happens to be in
Duluth. The blue out there. So again, they
went to a larger scale right away. They knew
that there was iron ore there and they were looking for it.
This one is actually before the program but out
there is. OK, this is a New Mexico map.
125,000, 1881. USGS was two years old.
We're going to work on making a better copy of this.
Once in a while, there will be a map that is relatively
rare, very interesting, and we won't push forward as is.
We will try and evaluate these critical maps and
work with people to get better copies or work on
improving the quality before re-releasing.
And North Carolina, the oldest map, again.
The interesting thing is this one was labeled
'Condemned'. Obviously, graphically, it's not
acceptable. We'll look for a better copy. We
have no idea what 'Condemned' means. Is this
superseded? Was it out of print? They've
printed a new one? We don't know. But somebody
with nice script condemned the map. We'll go back and find out.
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Oregon, again, the oldest map, 250,000 there. Three
years difference, this is three years before the other
condemned map; same script. We had some librarian
in there that was very, very intense. The map is
superseded, my God, they're condemned.
Virginia's oldest map. And the reason I have
Washington's oldest map up here to close this
out is this is the map that's on the exhibit manuals.
There's a series of them out there at the USGS booth,
so I'd encourage you to stop by. We'll be around
tomorrow again. We can answer a lot of in-depth
questions. And there's material there. We'd be
happy to talk to you of them.
So I'm going to turn it over now. Now that we
have this collection, we're working with the USGS board to bring it forward.