Value And Values In Cartography

Although these three essays appear to deal with disparate topics (cartographic marketing, maps for school textbooks and the evolution of thematic atlases) they are, in fact, integrated around two themes: 1 the nature of cultural values assigned to cartography by society, and 2 the conception of monetary value assigned to the cartographic enterprise and its chief product, the map. These topics require careful, and perhaps critical, scrutiny at this time because the introduction of the computer to cartography in recent decades is changing in significant ways the forms in which human needs for spatial knowledge have been met for hundreds of years. The ultimate question becomes: what future is there for map-centred cartography as we know it today? Only by introducing the issues of value and values to professional discourse can we begin to formulate answers and see directions in which to move forward. Bien que ces trois textes semblent traiter de sujets differents, a savoir le marketing cartographique, les car...