Oh, the Places You'll Go!

I'm signing up for "Getting Started with GIS", a three-week course offered through LITA. I absolutely love maps: they hold the secrets to finding new places and the comfort of knowing you'll find your way back home.

I'm pretty excited to learn how to make online maps and how to use them in library settings. I wonder if we'll discuss maps and augmented reality? Location-aware technology? And are these things something that small libraries can adopt, or do they only make sense in a larger library? How can we get the community involved? Maybe they could tag locations on a map of the town, or tag the countries they've been to around the world. Or where they're from. (Also: do these tags need monitoring?) Our town's big on local history, so it could be neat to scan in old photos in the collection and tag them to places on a map.

A friend contemplates Tokyo public transit, 2008

I also want to know: how do you keep information on the map from getting cluttered, especially if you have a lot of information to share? How do you organize it?

Just four years ago my friends and I navigated the unknown by signs and folding paper maps; now, I hold a little, ever-updating map in the palm of my hand thanks to my brand new smartphone. I've already downloaded interactive map apps (complete with regular updates) for our next destination, so I can use them without having to connect to the internet. What a game-changer! A little tiny part of me wonders if it takes some of the fun out of getting lost, out of figuring it out on your own... but the bigger part of me that can't seem to read a map successfully is glad for the help. I can't wait to see where we'll be in another four years.