Discussion: My Google Map Experience

Creating a personal map using the Google Map interface was interesting and fun, but also frustrating. Perhaps due to my age, I still consider paper topographic maps as my primary source for evaluating geographic data. Though digital sources have their positive points -- ease of access; seamless coverage -- my experience with digital-source maps has shown that, while convenient, they can be incomplete and limited sources of geographic information. Of course, this is the case with any map or representation of Earth: no representation is perfect or complete. But, within my own interior digital/analog debate, as I see it, there are peculiar and particular aspects of the comparison between these cartographic forms which remain to be explored and examined.

Frequently, when comparing a topographic quadrangle depicting a given area (i.e. an actual large-scale paper map) with its digital counterpart, features depicted on the quadrangle are missing from on-line digital sources. Such features include nominal information (the names of mountain ranges, streams and villages, for example) and the depiction of various categories of features. The location of springs, for example, is missing from most of the commonly-used digital map sources such as Google Maps or Google Earth.

Conversely, on occasion, I've come upon information from digital sources which are not depicted on the corresponding topographic sheet. This was the case some months ago while planning a trip to a remote part of the Mojave Desert. Cross-referencing with a topographic quadrangle, Google Maps depicted an entire network of named roads where none were shown on paper. (Many topographic sheets are outdated and their depiction of roads can be a source of confusion.)

Another aspect of the paper vs. digital conundrum is perhaps somewhat personal and idiosyncratic: the seamless, regular coverage of a digital map (such as Google Maps) contrasts with the sense of suspense and anticipation accompanying the first view of a large-scale topographic quadrangle. This experience -- part surprise, part exploration -- has no equivalent in the digitally-represented world in which all locations, areas, and landscapes, merge from one to the other without interruption or circumcision.

Lastly, the large size of a paper topographic sheet -- compared to the size of the average computer screen -- allows greater freedom when scanning an area: relationships between features over broad areas are cognitively accessible; patterns easily discernable. With a computer screen, such relationships are masked or, at least, access to them is limited, i.e. mousing around a digital map, one part of the map will recede off-screen as another part comes into view. Also, as with all representations of Earth, the vagaries of scale account for coarseness of resolution with respect to the quality of viewable data.

My Google Maps dynamic map titled 'Science, Nature, Adventure: hiking in the Lava Mountains, Mojave Desert, California' depicts a part of an adventure undertaken 14 February 2009 to the Lava Mountains in the Mojave Desert portion of San Bernardino County, California, USA. The object of the “adventure” was to visit -- in their natural setting -- Indian (i.e. Native American) rock art at Steam Wells, an abandoned settlement once occupied by an apparent recluse. I was unaware of this capability in the Google Maps interface. Creating a Google Map was new to me.

My own view of online mapping services such as Google Maps or MapQuest is that they primarily serve as vehicles of commerce, a perception based on my user experience. Frequently the only nominal features appearing on such online mapping displays are businesses, and of those, only businesses who have paid to appear on the map. Such a situation edits automatically a great deal of information. With commerce as a constructive limit for what does and does not get mapped, businesses which may be superior in some way (i.e. restaurants better than the ones which have paid to appear on the map) are left out of the representation. Excising information that cannot be priced, the map is less rich and its users impoverished. The value of online user-generated mapping lies in circumventing such commerical strictures, though one is limited by what the interface will allow and the skill set of the user.

Though not a luddite by any means, using digital mapping services like Google maps is fun, but I wonder about its ultimate value. When the cables at the bottom of the ocean were finally connected, the first user of the trans-Atlantic telephone lines commented "What should I say?" And so it is as each new technology is sold to the public: all too often, the medium becomes its own raison d'etre; and content secondary.