[WEB4LIB] RE: Google Maps UK

[JOHN MARQUETTE]

IMHO, Google will just buy MultiMap.  Look what they did with KeyHole.

(Opinions expressed are my own and not representative of the City of
Commerce, the County of Los Angeles, or the State of California.)

John Marquette
City of Commerce Public Library
Commerce, CA 90040

-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Michael Creech
Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2005 8:52 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] RE: Google Maps UK

Another mapping tool that has good coverage of the UK and mainland
Europe is MultiMap.com (http://www.multimap.com/).  It includes a good
bit of information about the map and local area for which you searched. 
Maybe Google will include more of this type of information as a part of
its service when Google Maps is no longer a beta service.

Mike

--
Mike Creech, MILS
Web Development Coordinator
The Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
410.516.0632 (p)
410.516.5339 (f)

>>> "Dempsey,Lorcan" <dempseyl at oclc.org> 04/21/05 10:42 AM >>>

We were looking at this yesterday .. Currently the Google Maps
'universe' has UK/Ireland and North America in it. It is a slightly
surreal experience 'spinning the globe' (you can 'drag' all the way
around) and seeing large empty spaces with the small Islands of the
North Atlantic (UK/Ireland) and the large North America as the only
landing points. Columbus would hit North America by sailing in either
direction from the UK ;-)

The combination of Google Maps and Google Local is pretty impressive.
You can do a variety of types of searches where you have incomplete
information and be offered potential locations. For example a search
on
'lorcan' and 'columbus' will give you OCLC pinpointed on the map. Not
the most useful search maybe ;-) but you get the idea ... A search on
'strawberry cake' and 'Columbus' will show you the name and location
of
the couple of branches of the local bakery whose specialty this is
(albeit among other results). 

It also allows you to take a URL for your position at any stage. So
the
above is 
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=lorcan+columbus&ll=40.098700,-83.124700&sp

n=0.432617,0.669499&hl=en

We live south of the Park of Roses in Columbus - I started with a
broader map of columbus and 'dragged/zoomed' there and asked for a url:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=columbus+oh+43214&ll=40.040344,-83.022920&

spn=0.013519,0.020922&hl=en

See what I mean about Columbus at:
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=44.625000,-38.411526&spn=56.875000,116.31

3039&hl=en.

If you try to get driving instructions from the US to the UK though it
returns a message that it cannot do this for you ...... ;-)

Check out http://www.paulrademacher.com/housing/ for an interesting
'blend' of services .... Clearly, this is suggestive of other services
including library services ....

Lorcan 


Lorcan Dempsey [http://orweblog.oclc.org] 
OCLC Research  [http://www.oclc.org/research/]

-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib at webjunction.org 
[mailto:web4lib at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Roy Tennant
Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2005 10:11 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Google Maps UK

For those of you who can't believe that Heathrow Airport is so far out
of London central, here is proof:

<http://maps.google.co.uk/maps? 
q=London+Heathrow+Airport,+Middlesex,+UB3+5AP&ll=51.477539,
-0.312121&spn=0.656250,0.672030&hl=en>

You guessed it, as seen on Peter Scott's Library Blog
<http://blog.xrefer.com/>, Google Maps UK is now available. I can
hardly
wait for Google Maps Crete.
Roy