The bigger and more mysterious question for me is: Can I build a store off of something that focuses on contemporary cartography and do it in a physical location? Some people more talented than I have been able to pull it off selling their own work online. Only a couple of people in the U.S. are doing it in a physical space with overhead. With rent. I like knowing that there are places like the Map Center still around and I want to be a part of keeping Rhode Island quirky and worth exploring. But it’s not 1995 any more. I sell gas station 8-folds and prints of USGS topo maps and guide books and trail maps but it’s hard to sell information that someone on the internet is giving away for free. The value add of a paper map is providing that information in a portable, digestible and familiar way that includes context and that does have value. Lots of folks buy paper maps for outdoor activities, trip planning and conceptualizing space in large areas or putting on their walls to remind them off a place they love or a place they want to explore.

He’s looking for maps to sell: see the Map Center’s call for cartographers. As for the kind of customer Andrew is looking for, it would probably look a lot like Mary Ann Sternberg, who in a piece for Next Avenue writes about her history with and love of paper maps.

“The physical map has the same appeal, probably, as the vinyl record. It’s tactile, it’s there, it’s present—it’s not ephemeral.”

A nice piece from CBC News on the so-called lost art of map reading and paper maps, touching many of the usual points, featuring (among others) the co-owners of my local map store, Ottawa’s World of Maps.

Most of their videos are a few years old, but I only recently stumbled across the YouTube channel of New World Maps. They have a number of short, practical videos aimed at map buyers and map owners who want to display their maps: tips for framing maps, for flattening maps so they can be framed (above), for dealing with small chips and tears (at least on inexpensive maps), among other subjects. Useful—and not just for maps.

My local map store—or at least the one closest to me—is World of Maps in Ottawa. Unlike other map stores whose closings I’ve had to cover here, it’s still a going concern: an Ottawa community newspaper, the Kitchissippi Times, marks World of Maps’s 25th year in business.

Previously: Stanfords Cartographer: ‘Paper Is Going to Make a Comeback’; Stanfords Is Moving.

The survival of a company like Kroll is a small act of rebellion against the forces reshaping the city by the day. And yet lately, John has wondered what will become of the business his grandfather bought in 1920 and his father worked at for 72 years. John is also a co-owner of Metsker Maps, a retail store in Pike Place Market, but he leaves the day-to-day operations there to others. He is the sole owner of Kroll.

“I have to craft my exit,” he says.

[MAPS-L]

MacVan General Manager Bob Stanley, one of two remaining employees of a company that once employed nearly 20 people, said this week he and owner Ken Field agonized for four months, trying to find way to keep the company alive.

“We were just looking for a path to stay open. We went through the books, but it just wasn’t going to happen. It (the business) just wasn’t paying for itself,” Stanley said. “I just want to thank our customers. We appreciate their loyalty. They have always been great to work with.”

MacVan is best known for “The Book,” its annual spiral-bound collection of detailed maps of the Colorado Springs area that has been a staple for real estate agents, delivery drivers, police and firefighters and even journalists. The company operates a retail store at 1045B Garden of the Gods Road and produces more than 40 different maps for cities along the Colorado Front Range and Western Slope, a telephone directory called the “Ute Pass Gold Book” for Teller County and parts of El Paso and Park counties as well as advertising and custom real estate maps.

MacVan has been in business since 1978. [MAPS-L]

The Map Store, a Milwaukee institution that has been in business since 1937, will be going out of business on April 1st. The Map Store’s owner cited “the combination of falling revenue and his age” (he’s 78) as reasons to close shop. [Cartophilia]

Always sad to see a map store close, but these are not unfamiliar reasons: the age and ill health of the proprietor felled Alaska’s Observatory Books; and Seattle’s Wide World Books and Maps fell victim to online shopping.

Shelf Awareness is reporting that Seattle’s Wide World Books and Maps, which has operated since 1976, will close at the end of the month. The owner cites the trend toward online shopping and something more particular to map stores: digital maps and online travel guides. [via]