Mapquest

What do you think the cost to the taxpayer would really be if the USGS let people download high-quality PDF (or some other image file) version of their 1:24,000 quadrangle maps instead of just offering little JPEG thumbnail images and selling print copies for $6.

You're talking some number of lost sales to people who would otherwise have bought the print copy. But not a lot of lost sales. The kinds of things people are most likely to do with these maps -- take them hiking or sailing or kayaking; hang them on a wall -- aren't well-suited to electronic media. And there'd be some cost associated with the bandwidth. The service, meanwhile, would be potentially quite useful to at least a few people, and would open unknown doors to the enterprising.

Comments

Your link doesn't work.

Also, the maps are government works, and thus aren't copyrightable. So the USGS wouldn't just have to worry about free images competing with printed copies, they would have to worry about commercial printers competing with them. It's probably still a good idea, but it might be an unintended consequence of copyright policy (if they had a valid copyright, they might be happy to provide better images).

Posted by minderbender | July 5, 2007 8:16 AM

Actually, the USGS data is available in a variety of formats-- including 3D topographic data--and I believe it's all free to the public. But the convoluted navigation at the USGS website doesn't make it easy to find what one's looking for.

A lot of public-domain USGS, Library of Congress, and NASA data, though, seems to be simply unavailable to online users. I'm not in a position to point any fingers, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if this has something to do with budget cuts, incompetent-crony appointment, and neocon "privatization" philosophy at those three agencies over the last seven years.

Posted by James Gary | July 5, 2007 8:16 AM

I don't know, James, that seems like a bit of a stretch. I doubt the information was any more accessible under Clinton, and I doubt it would have been different under Kerry or Gore.

Posted by minderbender | July 5, 2007 8:29 AM

A little research reveals this awesome map:

http://store.usgs.gov/sap/its/y_images/PDF/112283.pdf

(it takes a while to load, or at least it did for me)

The only problem I notice is that they switched the colors, so on their map Matt would be a red-stater. Seems a little strange to do it that way, but whatever, still very cool.

Posted by minderbender | July 5, 2007 8:59 AM

I don't know, James, that seems like a bit of a stretch. I doubt the information was any more accessible under Clinton, and I doubt it would have been different under Kerry or Gore.

It's obviously a matter of speculation, but one can't really compare the two. The Internet in its present form (with widespread broadband access) didn't really exist during the Clinton administration, so it would've been pointless at the time to make online accessibility to the data a high priority.

I'd like to hope, though, that an administration with any real concern for an educated citizenry would have put some real effort into the project.

Posted by James Gary | July 5, 2007 10:03 AM

Actually, someone bought all of the 1:24k maps and made them available for free. Take a look at libremap.org.

Posted by Brian Harrington | July 5, 2007 10:26 AM

But that's just the thing - this isn't a valuable educational tool, it's a niche product that the government happens to provide.

Posted by minderbender | July 5, 2007 10:45 AM

Actually no one really needs raster (pdf) electronic versions of these topo maps unless you intend to print them out on paper. And if that is your objective, might as well just buy the waterproof versions.

For real back country use, much better to use vector-based topo maps stored on a SD card in your GPS. All the current handheld mapping GPS units on the market use vector maps not raster maps. It's the only good way to do routing and that sort of thing.

The only reason someone with a handheld mapping GPS would want raster scanned maps would be to print out paper backups in the event that the GPS failed while in the back country. It is, of course, good practice to always have paper backups with you anyway.

Posted by Kent | July 5, 2007 11:33 AM

This sort of thing is copyrighted in the UK. Similarly postcodes are the copyright of the Post Office and they charge local councils a fee for lookup of the geographical location, even thpugh the councils provided the information in the first place. Some local councils have begun to use Google Maps on their websites instead of the government's own mapping service, because it's free. There's a campaign underway to make the Post Office and Ordnance Survey offer the data for free and let the private sector exploit it commercially, but it's not getting anywhere.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | July 5, 2007 12:14 PM

One of those niche public products that companies quietly lobby to keep high fees on as a barrier to entry. Same with navigation charts. It is slowly changing though, a lot of census data used to be fee based.

Posted by tib | July 5, 2007 1:02 PM

Yeah!!! A couple of other proposals. Charge non-citizens (of the US) a fee for purchasing a GPS that uses satellites and circuitry paid for by US taxpayers. Then use those funds to make paper copies of Defense Mapping Agency nautical charts available virtually free to sailors. DAMN RIGHT.

Posted by Papaw John | July 5, 2007 3:42 PM

It probably funds the USGS's amazing collection of digital maps: http://seamless.usgs.gov/

You can view/download aerial imagery, a la Google Maps, look at elevation maps, etc.

It is an amazing resource for those doing mapping for academic reasons.

Posted by Alec | July 5, 2007 11:32 PM