> > So who would the neogeographers, in the context of this panel, be? The > creators of the tools or the mass users of the tools? >
I think there are two classes of Neogeographers: tool makers and tool users. But the second class is only a Neogeographer if they are creating new data. For instance, only Mercator created the tool of the Mercator projection but many, many pilots and cartographers used this tool in mapping the trade routes. So, someone using Google Earth to point out houses isn't, in my mind, a Neogeographer. But someone who purposefully creates a KML file to demonstrate differences in housing prices per neighborhood, is a Neogeographer (akin to the pilots). And someone who creates a tool to generate KML from an spreadsheet is another class of Neogeographer (akin to Mercator). Of course, one could follow this hierarchy further and find another layer where the Paleogeographers live. One class of Paleos "map out" the relationships between types of map creators regardless of the medium. Another class of Paleos creates tools that impact maps regardless of the medium. So this, perhaps justifies the Paleo differential. The academic interest is to study aspects of map making and map use regardless of whether they are drawn on a cave wall or Googled on a iPhone. -Eric -- -=--=---=----=----=---=--=-=--=---=----=---=--=-=- Eric B. Wolf 720-209-6818 USGS Geographer Center of Excellence in GIScience PhD Student CU-Boulder - Geography
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