THE SUCCESS OF CARTOGRAPHIC HERITAGE DISSEMINATION BASED ON PUBLIC ACCEPTANCE

M. Jobst1, B. Wurm2

1 - Vienna University of Technology, Institute of Geoinformation and Cartography, Vienna, Austria

2 - Jobstmedia Presentation and Printing House, Klagenfurt, Austria

office@jobstmedia.at

 

The rapid development of digital environments for geospatial contents results in a new perspective for cartographic heritage. A possible definition of cartographic heritage in context with the digital world shows up more dependencies to related fields of work, like computer sciences or media research. Comprehensive considerations of media techniques, content analysis, dissemination methods and impact measurements form important parts of this definition. The future work of cartographic heritage, which´s apparent importance reflects in historic research or economic planning processes, should be led by the main influencing factors, like media lifetime, content decoding and usage, reproduction techniques and appropriate dissemination methods.

The actual success of cartographic heritage can be indicated by its use for historic research, the actuality for future planning processes or the simple public dissemination of ancient maps. A lot of examples can be listed where important ancient maps, like the “Atlas Bleau van der Helm“ which is part of cultural heritage, are freshly distributed with comments to their art, specific characteristic and historic importance in form of books, dvd´s or websites. The success of these dissemination processes mainly bases upon public acceptance. The enormous expense of reproduction and annotation for dissemination seeks for economic affirmation according to the public interest. The expenses could hardly be argumented, if the artifact is unimportant and there is no need or market for reproduction. This fact of limited resources starts a dangerous circle for the survival of cartographic heritage, which seems to be the main important source of social, religious and artistic remaining in geospatial context.

The financial resources for implementing/executing cartographic heritage have mainly be argumented with the importance of the content and the expected public interest. Thus it becomes important to measure public acceptance for various dissemination methods.

This contribution should clear the understanding of cartographic heritage, express the overall importance of cartographic dissemination by listing successful examples and discuss the viability of measurements for public acceptance. Can specific indicators as well as different survey realizations, which are widely used to analyze purchasing patterns, be used to measure the acceptance of financial expenses in cartographic heritage?