ScottB's onMason

There are many reasons digital mapping supersedes the benefits of traditional maps, the primary being the ability to update.  Back in the olden days, a paper map could only be updated by setting the old one on fire and printing out a new one complete with new information.  As Earth’s population spreads across the globe, maps need constant updating to meet the needs of new streets, communities and populace.  Digital maps also offer the ability to generate layers to a map.  Be they historical layers, terrain, weather related, or traffic, layering and customizing a digital map to meet the user’s needs is incomparable to traditional methods.  The user has the option to look at all or any combination of these layers based on the research they are doing.  Also, multiple users are able to access and alter the same online document simultaneously which is another tremendous benefit.

By using digital mapping in our soldier projects, we can further illustrate the scope of their lives: where they were born, lived, raised families, and where they died.  Seeing where these events happened on a map, as opposed to simply reading about it, works to deepen our vision of how they lived and died.

As Trevor Harris, Jesse Rouse and Susan Bergeron argue, “The visual display of information creates a visceral connection to the content that goes beyond what is possible through traditional text documents.”

Trevor Harris, Jesse Rouse and Susan Bergeron, “The Geospatial Semantic Web, Pareto GIS, and the Humanities,” in The Spatial Humanities: GIS and the Future of Humanities Scholarship, ed. David Bodenhamer, John Corrigan and Trevor Harris (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010), 124-142