Press Releases 2007

CONTACT: Mary Planding, Director, Marketing & Communications
(831) 479-6158
mary.planding [at] cabrillo.edu

March 1, 2007

"Map Day" at Cabrillo College—Volunteers Sort 6,000 Maps

Aptos, CA—On Saturday, March 3, volunteers at Cabrillo College will tackle a sorting job of over 6,000 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) maps. The massive accumulation of California maps, worth over $35,000, is a donation to the Cabrillo College Archaeological Technology Program (ATP) from the Santa Cruz firm of Bowman & Williams, Consulting Civil Engineers. The team of volunteers will gather to roll up their sleeves and divide the maps according to regions, with the final goal of redistributing the donation to twelve California Historic Regional Information Centers located at academic institutions around the state. “This is an unparalleled example,” said Rob Edwards, Director of Cabrillo College’s Archaeological Technology Program, “of a public gift from Bowman & Williams, volunteer outreach from students and the community, and an inter-segmental cooperation on a state-wide scale.”

The Saturday sorting promises to be a lively and unusual scene. Participants are not likely to ever see so many maps in one place again. Volunteers will be made up of students from ATP (which includes students from several other schools including UCSC and Hartnell), Cabrillo College’s “Dig It” club and members of the Santa Cruz Archaeological Society. Volunteers are enthusiastically gearing up for this challenging task. Santa Cruz Archaeological Society President, Lyn O’Neil says, “It is wonderful to be part of such a project and to see Cabrillo’s leadership in carrying this out.”

Once the sorting is complete, ATP Director Rob Edwards will deliver the maps to members of the Regional Information Centers (RICs) at the Society of California Archaeology’s annual meeting in San Jose on March 24-26. Jointly maintaining the state-wide file of over 120,000 historical and over 110,000 pre-historical cultural heritage sites on index USGS quad maps, the RICs serve a critical role in the recording, preservation, and continuing understanding of the California’s past. Hearing of the impending cartographic windfall, Sonoma State Regional Information Center Director, Leigh Jordan, declared, “This is a very significant contribution which will assist us in maintaining our records.”

Members of the media are invited to experience “Map Day” at Cabrillo College, on Saturday, March 3 starting at 9 am. For specifics on where the effort will be taking place on the Aptos campus, please call Rob Edwards at (831)479-6294 (office) or (831)246-0907 on Saturday morning.