Against the Grain
Volume 25 | Issue 3 Article 39
June 2013 Collecting to the Core-Critical Cartography Mark Bidney University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, [email protected]
Ann Doherty CHOICE/ACRL, [email protected]
Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/atg Part of the Library and Information Science Commons
Recommended Citation Bidney, Mark and Doherty, Ann (2013) "Collecting to the Core-Critical Cartography," Against the Grain: Vol. 25: Iss. 3, Article 39. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7771/2380-176X.6546
This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. Collecting to the Core — Critical Cartography by Marcy Bidney (Curator, American Geographical Society Library, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Geography Editor, Resources for College Libraries)
Column Editor’s Note: The “Collecting A discussion of cartographic analysis, or you have knowledge about your surroundings, to the Core” column highlights monographic “critical cartography,” as it is known within you have the power to represent and possibly works that are essential to the academic li- the academic discipline, must begin with Ar- manipulate the space. Historically, mapmak- brary within a particular discipline, inspired thur Robinson. A longtime member of the ing was once concentrated in the dominant, by the Resources for College Libraries bib- Department of Geography at the University Western, state-based world powers — England, liography (online at http://www.rclweb.net). of Wisconsin-Madison, Robinson played a France, Germany, and the United States. It In each essay, subject specialists introduce leading role in the development of cartography was also embedded in major cartographic and explain the classic titles and topics that as a field of study. In his early career, he served companies like Rand McNally, the Nation- continue to remain relevant to the undergrad- as director of the map division for the Office of al Geographic Society, and even major oil uate curriculum and library collection. Dis- Strategic Services during the Second World companies. In 1991, Mark Monmonier au- ciplinary trends may shift, but some classics War. This work led him to argue for the for- thored How to Lie with Maps, the first book to never go out of style. — AD mulation of standards for map design, which introduce critical map-reading skills to a wider could prevent the often erroneous usage of and audience.2 Written in a less formal and more representations in maps. In 1976 he cowrote popular tone, How to Lie with Maps effectively aps represent human understanding with Barbara Bartz Petchenik The Nature of explains how maps can distort reality and “tell of the physical world and serve Maps, in which he discusses at length “some lies.” As Monmonier writes in the intro- as historical records of how those of the human cognitive characteristics that duction, “I want to make readers aware that M maps…are also subject to distortions arising representations and perceptions have changed lead to an understanding of mapping as one of over time. Also, people love maps, as I witness man’s basic forms of knowing and communi- from ignorance, greed, ideological blindness, every day when users access the American cating.”1 Until the late 1960s and early 1970s, or malice.” Despite being written for a broad Geographical Society Library and directly the study of cartography dealt primarily with audience, How to Lie with Maps quickly be- experience the geography, art, history, and the production and design of maps, came, and continues beauty presented on a single 24x36 piece of with very little research on users’ to be, an essential read paper. Maps can elicit incredibly evocative re- consumption and perceptions for undergraduate stu- sponses from users, who find themselves lost in of maps. Robinson quotes a dents of cartography the rich images and information. When I point Czech author as saying, in and geography because out some critiques of the information as it is a discussion on the state Monmonier clearly il- represented — that one country appears larger of current cartographic lustrates how maps can than another when in reality it isn’t, or that the thought, “in other words, be used for political color red is meant to evoke a certain emotion, the map user is ex- propaganda and cor- the user’s relationship with the map shifts, as pected to submit, more porate advertising, and one begins to think about how the information or less, to the cartog- how even the simple is presented, rather than approaching the map rapher’s conditions.” use of color can impact as a piece of art or a historical document. It This theory that the a map’s meaning. How is problematic when individuals view maps cartographer creates a to Lie with Maps was uncritically, allowing the data and visual rep- product to be accept- published in a second resentations provided to serve as fact, when ed without question edition in 1996 with they often are not the whole truth. Since the is one that Robinson the addition of two new mid-1990s there has been dramatic growth in and Petchenik’s work chapters, one of which the popularity of maps and other cartographic rebuffs, in part by coining addresses the growing use visualizations, fostered by Web technology the term “map percipient.” and manipulation of maps developments, cheaper computing systems, A map percipient is a viewer to whom the map using computers and multimedia tools. and more accessible software programs. As will convey information. The emergence of Shortly after the publication of How to Lie technology has expanded, so has the ability for this term and its definition was radical in that with Maps, Denis Wood expanded on Mon- anyone with access to information and map- it acknowledged that the map percipient played monier’s critical arguments in The Power of making tools to develop maps, increasing the a role in the interpretation of a map and could Maps, a highly theoretical and philosophical prevalence of maps in our everyday lives — on question the information presented. The most academic monograph.3 Wood radically television during the election cycle, in Web- important chapters in this book discuss how argues that maps communicate nothingness based infographics, through the widespread maps function as a communication system and as much as something real. In other words, adoption of map apps on smartphones, and compare the author-reader relationship with what they don’t show (by omission) is as il- in the academic research of scholars in fields that of the cartographer-percipient, making an lustrative as what they do show. He proposes ranging from religious studies to biology — argument that there are essential differences that maps are not simply pretty pictures, but and additionally increasing the need for critical between these communication systems and powerful tools which represent the cartog- map-reading skills. Given this growth, it is emphasizing how maps can, and should, be rapher’s construction of information. The timely to discuss foundational monographs that questioned by users. Power of Maps depicts how maps are used question the content and meanings embedded Following the publication of The Nature of as tools that serve the interests of those who in cartographic representations. This essay Maps, the scholarly debate around maps’ de- produce them, be it an individual cartogra- focuses on four works that embrace a critical signs, values, and representations grew and the pher, a corporation, or a government or other approach to reading maps: Arthur Robinson’s field of critical cartography was cemented as a social or political entity. The emphasis that The Nature of Maps, Mark Monmonier’s subdiscipline. Critical cartography addresses maps work by serving interests highlights How to Lie with Maps, Denis Wood’s The the power hierarchies and biases inherent in Wood’s thesis regarding the inherent bias of Power of Maps, and Alan MacEachren’s visual representations and embraces the idea these visual tools. Wood recently revisited How Maps Work. that geographic knowledge equals power; if continued on page 79
78 Against the Grain / June 2013
oday we have a lot of ways not to four or five, Pittsburgh in six, Kansas City or adjacent to Louisville Airport and larger in travel to meetings, once you add up even from Atlanta in eight. For me, the drive its own right than many passenger airports, Tteleconference, Webcast, Webex, We- to attend this year’s meeting of the Associa- and a few minutes from there the Ohio River binar, E-forums, video chatting, all for “live” tion of College and Research Libraries was bridge crossing, Louisville behind you and meetings, or podcasts and streaming video for five hours, due north on I-65 from the straight, flat homestretch be- after the fact. Soon I’ll have one more, since Nashville. Signs for the National fore your first view of the Oz-like the company I work for, Ingram, plans to Corvette Museum in Bowling Indianapolis skyline, maybe two install videoconferencing, another way to save Green are always my marker for hours ahead. on the travel time, travel costs, and general having left Tennessee and entered According to USA Today that wear and tear of actually going somewhere to Kentucky, where the next couple morning, companies are planning talk to people. I am sure there will be many of hours or so are through wooded on more convention and business meeting occasions when we’ll be thankful for hills whose underlying limestone, travel this year, loosening policies the chance to stay put. visible at a couple of highway from the recession. So I was part On the other hand, we’ll probably feel a lit- blasting sites, accounts for some of a trend in my five-hour drive, tle cheated now and then, since as most people of the world’s largest caves, and along with some 2,000 librarians who travel in their jobs would tell you, it’s all those roadside signs announcing who each had made their own trip worth it, sometimes at least. One thing lost, in Hidden River Cave, Horse Cave, to Indianapolis. The first librarian an untraveled meeting, is the transition period, Kentucky Down Under, and the I recognized was a library school that zone when you’re not at home, not at work, most famous of these geological professor whose class I had spoken not there yet. You’re on the way, maybe all by attractions, Mammoth Cave. to a couple of times. She was there yourself, and maybe these in-between times There’s also Dinosaur World, in Cave City, to give a poster session and had a tube slung are your only chance to be out of reach for a whose ambassador is a giant T-Rex menacing over her shoulder. She wasn’t sure how the little while, your best opening to take a stab the highway, and further on, signs for the class would run this coming year, she told me, at organizing your thoughts. As miserable an Abraham Lincoln Birthplace, for Fort Knox, since the entire program was going online. experience as getting there can be, as any fre- and then for the Kentucky Bourbon Trail and Classes would no longer meet in person. May- quent flyer knows all too well, there are times its distillery highlights Maker’s Mark and be she’d ask me to put on a Web presentation. it feels like a ration of grace. Jim Beam. By then, the land has opened up, She’d figure something out. In any case, library As a heartland city, you can drive to In- the Blue Grass Parkway would take you east education, apparently, was heading in a differ- dianapolis from lots of places, Columbus or toward Lexington, and soon you are upon the ent direction than business travel. Chicago in three hours, St. Louis or Detroit in headquarters of the UPS cargo aircraft fleet, continued on page 80 Against the Grain / June 2013