NEWSLETTER NO. 4 OF 2011
AXIS Newsletter #7 OF 2011: JULY, 2011, Hawaii/Honolulu, and Vancouver Map Book – details below
NEW TITLES THIS MONTH: Australia, Cuba, Hawaii/Honolulu
INTRODUCTION
We have been experiencing unusually severe weather conditions in America for the past month or so, including the most devastating tornado in history in Joplin, bursting levees in Louisiana, severe and prolonged flooding in Quebec and Manitoba, and closer to home, more snow. I was in the interior of BC last week and experienced winter-like conditions of mountains of snow at higher elevations, heavy fog, snow on the road (in June, for heaven’s sake!!), and cold, wet weather. Bad weather always affects shipments of newly-printed maps coming to us from our printers, and affects shipments being sent by us by surface delivery. To compound our difficulties, our dear postal personnel (I hesitate to call them workers, since they earn considerably more than I do, and do considerably less work) have decided to strike for even more money. This will disrupt our business significantly, as if these characters cared, but we’ll do our best to carry on. (Later: after a prolonged and obstructive debate in the House of Commons, the postal workers were ordered back to work pending a mediator’s binding report on their ‘grievances’. The postal workers promptly and vociferously screamed their defiance. Nobody listened.)
WHAT ARE WE WORKING ON?
ITMB is always looking for new ideas. The world is not as well mapped as most of us think it is, so where are the weaknesses? For example, ITMB used to have a map of the Falkland Islands. It was a slow seller, but we still have the artwork. We’ve decided to add it to the back side of our next Antarctica map, which won’t come out until next year. Romania has been unavailable for three months now, so we can have time to prepare a detailed map of Moldava (or is it Moldovo?). I hope that this will come out this summer. In Africa, we have been quietly developing a map covering what used to be called Equatorial Africa, essentially a map of the vast Congo Democratic Republic, but also including Congo-Brazzaville, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea. This is an extremely difficult part of the world to map accurately, but it is slowly falling into shape. It is far too soon to say it is approaching completion, but it is the last large portion of the globe that we haven’t mapped, so we work on it whenever more pressing matters don’t intrude.
We have invested a considerable amount of time over the past couple of years to mapping America – both the Canadian and American parts. We started by mapping each Canadian province and territory, all thirteen of them, then turned our attention to Big Brother down south. Not wanting to duplicate the efforts of Rand McNally or other road map firms, we have concentrated on regional mapping, starting with the East Coast of the USA, then the East and West Halves, then the entire country. We have recently introduced two thematic travel atlases that are selling well - the Alaska Highway and Route 66. We are now developing two new maps; one covering the longest border in the world, which is of course the so-called ‘undefended’ US/Canadian frontier stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. We recently spent a week criss-crossing the border between British Columbia and Washington/Idaho and believe me, those American border guards sure became suspicious as to why we were crossing back and forth so frequently! Undefended, maybe; unsupervised? No way!
I received a call recently from one of my favourite American e-stores asking for a map of Northern Thailand. We don’t make one, nor do any of the other publishers we represent. In fact, I couldn’t recommend any place to go for such a map. Maybe Periplus? Nancy Chandler used to have a map of Chiang Mai, and may still do so, but that isn’t all of Northern Thailand. The Thai government has topo maps of all of Thailand, but does anyone do a commercial travel map of that part of the world? Let me know, please.
THE MAP INDUSTRY CONTRACTS AGAIN!
I received a letter recently from Spherical Concepts Globes, in Pennsylvania, announcing that they were shutting down in early June – not because the business was doing badly, but because didn’t fit in with their corporate image. Incredible. They have been a successful, well-established
manufacturing concern and sold to Herff Jones about five years ago. In a relatively short time period, the new owner has decided not to sell this valuable asset, that has been making money for the past 30 years, but to destroy it.
MAP TOWN CHANGES OWNERSHIP; ANOTHER MAP TOWN CHANGES NAME
The word Map Town has been commonly used by a number of firms around North America, with Map Store, or Map Shop, as variations. Having owned a map retail store myself for the past 30 years, I can easily attest to the fact that customers can’t remember the name of my business, but they sure remember various locations where we’ve operated in the past! Canada has two stores named Map Town, both of which are in Alberta. The store in Calgary was founded by Roger Nelson in 1989. I still have fond memories of visiting Tijuana with him and Ed Patton during the San Diego IMTA conference in 1993. Well, Roger and Donna have found a buyer for their retail business. The letter I received doesn’t state the new owner’s name (or names), but the business is now one of those numbered Ltd. companies that are so anonymous. The firm will continue using the Map Town name as a dba. No mention was made of the wholesale operation, Map Connections, or their small publishing line, Gem Trek.
The other firm, operating for the past several years under separate ownership, in Edmonton, Alberta, has recently changed its name to Map Depot & Framing. The ownership, address, and contact information have not changed.
NEWS ABOUT FORTHCOMING GATHERINGS
The next gathering of the map world is in Paris at the ICA Conference. Lan and I will be there, representing IMTA and hob’nobbing with the people who make and teach cartography. The next gathering is in the Palm Springs area of southern California, with the IMTA Americas gathering in mid-September. ITMB will be there, as usual, with a stand and hob’nobbing with the usual suspects. The next gathering is in Bangkok, in mid-November, arranged by IMTA Asia Pacific, and this should be an interesting show. We’ll be there, herding half a dozen Vietnamese big-wigs around, with Lan talking a mile a minute. We’re bringing delegates from three or four mapping organizations in Vietnam, none of whom have attended an international conference of this nature before, so it should be an interesting experience. I liken it to herding cats. The next conference will be held in Dresden, Germany, by IMTA-EAME. The conference dates may be moved from mid-February to the beginning of May, which should make it somewhat warmer and springlike than some memorable conferences I’ve attended in past years. Unfortunately, the exact dates are not known at this time, and IMTA-EAME’s Board has a difficult decision to make. Holding it too close to the time of the London Book Fair makes it difficult for exhibitors who attend LBF to justify a seond conference a few weeks later, and in my case, as Lan and I attend both LBF and IMTA meetings, if the two gatherings are held too far apart it makes it very difficult for us to justify two flights to Europe fairly close to each other. While I welcome the move to May as a better-weather attribute, the advantage of February is that it is an established time frame convenient to most members and falls roughly halfway between Frankfurt Book Fairs and yet is far enough away from LBF and other trade shows that it doesn’t cause problems. IMTA EAME has also parted ways with its executive director of several years, and a large part of organizing any conference rest with the Executive Director of any association, so the spring gathering of members remains a work in progress.
A BRIEF JOKE
Woman, sitting on veranda with husband, says: “I love you”. He asks: “Is that you or the wine talking?” She: “It’s me, talking to the wine”.
NEW RELEASES IN JUNE, 2011
Australia Travel Reference Map 7th Ed. 2011 ITM waterproof plastic paper 1:3,500,000 ISBN 9781553411277 UPC 815534112774 $12.95cdn/us, E8.95 7.99GBP – This is a minor updating to a popular tried and true title. The biggest change is to correct an error in the pricing of the former edition, and that is to revert to the normal cdn/us price of $12.95. While it has been nice for everyone to have a bargain-priced map for the past year, but the printed price was an error
and has been corrected. European prices were not affected, so remain unchanged. AVAILABLE
Cuba Travel Reference Map 6th Ed. 2011 ITM waterproof plastic paper 1:600,000 ISBN 9781553412021 UPC 815534120281 $12.95cdn/us, E8.95 7.99GBP – This is also a relatively minor update to our previous edition, but Cuba is showing definite signs of throwing off the legacy of inertia that has prevented progress on so many fronts. The Ring road around Havana is now almost complete, the old town is under-going significant improvement now that people can buy and sell property, and several roads have been improved in touristic areas. Cuba remains popular with visitors, and this is the most up to date map of the country in print. AVAILABLE.
Hawaii/Honolulu Travel Reference Map 3rd Ed. 2011 ITM waterproof plastic paper scale varies ISBN 9781553419235 UPC 815534192356 $9.95cdn/us E7.95 6.99GBP – This map represents a major change for ITMB. It is completely new artwork, using the latest technology available, and is GPS compliant. The contouring is superb, the roads easy to read, and the rivers clearly shown. Naturally, all towns and touristic sites have been included and the map is fully indexed. New features for this edition, apart from the artwork itself, is the use of plastic paper and the inclusion of a detailed map of Honolulu from Waikiki to Pearl harbour. All the state’s islands have been included, with Big Island and Oahu on one side, and Maui and the other islands on the reverse. This map is a huge improvement. AVAILABLE.
Vancouver City Map Book 2011 Ed. GMJ Maps 85pg 1:25,000 (approx.) $10.95cdn/us, E7.95 6.99GBP – This is not actually an ITMB product, but we do marketing for GMJ Maps, and they rarely do a Canadian title, so we hope to encourage them to look at doing more Canadian product. The book covers all of what is known as Metropolitan Vancover, which consists of some 15 suburban municipalities as well as the City of Vancouver itself. The size of the book is 8.5x11” or about the size of two ITMB maps placed side by side. The Vancouver urban area is far too large to have a folded map that can be printed reasonably and not be on such a large page that it becomes difficult to use. This book atlas shows all the streets in good detail, uses double-cased lines for streets, and divides the streets by category of significance. As well, it shows schools, hospitals, golf courses, parks, and major public features, much as one would expect of such a book. GMJ specializes in publishing maps of American cities, and has more than 300 titles in print. AVAILABLE.
ARTWORK OUT OF STOCK and being prepared for release
Cuzco and Southern Peru is currently out of stock. It is at press, having been updated.
Hong Kong is currently out of stock. A new map, called Hong Kong and Macau is being prepared.
Malaysia is currently out of stock and is being updated.
Moscow is currently out of stock and is being updated. No ETA is yet available.
Panama is low on inventory.
Puerto Rico is undergoing a major updating and will not be available again until August.
Romania is being re-created into Romania and Moldova as a double-sided map, expected in June.
Sabah and Sarawak are being prepared for release this summer as a double-sided map called Brunei, Sarawak, and Sabah. I’m afraid I don’t have an ETA for this project.
Southern Scotland Ordnance Survey Travel Map 1:250,000 – This new map is the first of the OS maps being reprinted by ITMB, carrying on the great tradition of Britain’s Ordnance Survey in mapping the United Kingdom. OS maintained 8 sheets, which we think is excessive, but this map covers Sheet 3 of the Routemaster series. Sheets 7 and 8 will follow shortly. Printing has been delayed indefinitely, unfortunately.
Yemen is low on inventory.