Report of committee on a loose-leaf national atlas

Summary

This report, submitted by the Committee on a National Atlas established under the Division of Earth Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council, aims to explore the feasibility and specific plans for producing a loose-leaf national atlas of the United States. Formed in December 1954 with members from federal map-making and issuing agencies and the American Geographical Society, the Committee proposed assembling a unified national atlas by standardizing sheet dimensions (16 by 22 inches) and other cartographic specifications for maps otherwise issued by federal agencies in varied formats. The report provides detailed specifications covering scales (with 1:10,000,000 and 1:5,000,000 as standards), projections (recommending Albers equal-area or Lambert conformal), treatment of territories and possessions, grouping of small maps, sample and index maps, folding methods, binding margins, explanatory text layout, sheet numbering, border formats, and maintenance of a central depository. The Committee concluded that the plan is both advisable and practicable with little or no increased publication expense, and strongly recommended that agencies consider conforming to these standards before finalizing publication plans to facilitate inclusion in the national atlas assembly.