Is there anyone that still uses globes? I was fascinated by the globes at The Rod Library. I decided that since they attracted my attention so much, I was going to talk about them. Globes are very important in communicating as to how our living earth looks like. Just how we came to our realization that the earth is round, is a mind boggling historical event depicted in these special balls, inspired by the shape of The Living Earth. Special thanks to Gretchen Gould for the unique collection and showing me around.
The globe also is a very important visual forteaching. It does not loose value yet as a teaching tool and not even soon. The fact that it is tangible even makes it better. It can be used to illustrate the masses of waters, the mass of land, vegetation, and deserts. At The Rod Library, the globes are are pieces of art radiating the aesthetic value as much as the functional value to direct library users to the maps cabinet on the second floor of the library. The globe on the top right had a spot on it that was worn out due to people touching it, on the spot of the city of Chicago. It downed to me that Chicago is a very popular city here at UNI, by the way the city Chicago on the globe by the main entrance of the library was scratched out. I was expecting Des Moines would be more popular in Iowa, since it is the our capital city.
The Globes communicated loud and clear what kind of information that was in the cabinets they were sitting on. In the cabinets there were even state highway maps and city streets maps.
To signify the importance of the globes there were signs around them, warning against carelessness.
On the other hand, there were a few shelves of atlases. I believe that the atlases left on the shelves are still very important. However, the advent of the internet and especially The Google Maps brought about a huge change.
The interactive maps outperform atlases by far and thus reduce the use of them. In terms of state streets, the GPS has brought about that change were maps are unnecessary. GPS and Goole maps provide real time information of what is on the ground and can, in fact, not only tell you your location but also inform others of your exact location too.
Source: Garmin nuvi 885T GPS Navigation by ComputerTV
Credit to
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On the other hand, atlases only provide historical information. Globes still serve not only historically valuable information, but also are instrumental for educational purposes of the nature of our home, The Living Earth. They are very rare to see though.
