Cave Map Database Update May 2011 – We have been receiving plenty of new cave maps in the past year and some old maps have been added as well. Jerry Vinyard brought Ken Thompson’s cave maps up to DGLS this past fall. Many of these maps are Ken’s personal copy of various maps, but many more are original inked copies of maps. While sifting through the first box of rolled maps Andy Free and I found several cave maps not in the files. Some of these maps are inked maps completed by students that were later redrafted before placed in Missouri Speleology and submitted to the files. Some of the maps are true works of art with more detail than displayed on the current map on file. I will need some help with organizing and filing these maps. There were 40 cave maps added to the files in 2007 and so far there have been 17 maps added in 2008. I have a handful of maps that have landed on my digital desk that I need to add when work slows up here at the survey. Ben Miller was the most productive cartographer in 2007 with 11 cave maps turned in. However if you looked at length of passage turned in for 2007 Baker and Sutton with the map of Still Spring Cave clocks in at 19272 feet of cave passage. 31973.8 feet of cave passage was turned in on maps this in 2007. At this time in 2008 Eric Hertzler has contributed the most with 8 cave maps and 1273 feet of cave passage. 2345 feet of cave has made it into the files for 2008. I expect this number to quadruple by the end of the year. All of these cartographers could not get all this great work done without the hard work of the survey crews. Next issue, most productive tape stretcher of all time!! – Spike

Cave Map Database Update Aug 2011 – Several more maps have come in since the last liaison. Also about 30 maps have been scanned in from Ken Thompson’s cave maps. I still have 4 more boxes of map tubes to sort though. The scanned maps still need some cleaning up and adding to the database, also the hard copy maps need to be filed in the appropriate drawers. There were 40 cave maps added to the files in 2007 and so far there have been 59 maps added in 2008, not including any of the maps that Ken had. At this time in 2008 Ben Miller has turned in the most with 32 cave maps and 4102 feet of cave passage. 16460 feet of cave has made it into the files for 2008, and I still expect this number to quadruple by the end of the year. Once again all of this would not get done without the hard work of the survey crews. Just glancing at the database it looks like the most common name on maps is A. Others. – Spike