First Time User Stories
How and why do users come to Pleiades for the very first time? What do they expect the experience to be? What should we do for them?
- My name is Katie and I am a graduate student in archaeology. I was directed to Pleiades by the website for the Ancient World Mapping Center because I was looking for more recent information on the exact location of Arycanda in Turkey. I am hoping to understand better the location of the site with respect to the surrounding area (ie. other towns, roads, rivers, etc.).
- I'm ancient history professor John Smith. I have come to Pleiades to add a forgotten, but important reference from X-ancient author, to X-ancient place. I know very little about computers and the single reference, although very interesting, is not quite enough to publish a whole article on. I am hoping that this will be an easy addition and not require computer expertise.
- My name is David and I am a cartographer with a respected Atlas production company. While I am not familiar with the ancient sources I am interested in collaborating on future online cartographic projects.
- My name is Melanie Publisher and I work for an academic publishing company. We are interested in producing maps for our latest text book on ancient Greece and are hoping that Pleiades will be able to help us. We would like to be able to enter a list of places we want on the map (not the list Pleiades gives us) and then print out that map with a scale and all the trimmings. Is this possible?
-My name is Derek and I am writing an article on Greek settlement patterns. I need to provide my own maps that will meet my publishers specifications, in particular format specifications. Will Pleiades be able to produce a map with the locations and scale that I choose and also in a variety of formats to meet my publishers needs.
- This is Dr. Jason. I heard about Pleiades at the APA/AIA conference and am interested in using Pleiades online in the classroom. I hope to find visual and animated maps to illustrate the expansion of empires. Also, 'Family Circus' type maps that trace the travels of some of the ancients (eg. Paul, Alexander, Cicero etc.) would be very helpful.
- I am a professor of military history at x-university. I teach courses on tactics and strategy and am looking for very precise content about individual battlefields. I know the location of Cannae or Gaugamela from a variety of Atlases, but I am interested in more detailed surveys of the sites: the size of the field, whether or not an ancient river (now dried up) may have had an effect on the battle or placement of troops, etc.
- My name is Ray and I am an instructor at x-university's Department of Urban Planning. I am interested in detailed maps of ancient cities. I am interested in tracing urban development and hope that Pleiades offers not only the location of a city on a large scale map, but also the physical attributes of that city in more detail, i.e. detailed city maps like we have today.
- I am Dr. Joseph and I want to add an article to the Pleiades database about site X. I have already written my draft in a word document and wish only to post it online for the editors approval. How do I do this?
- I'm a grad student at X-college and am writing a paper on the military operations of Trajan in Dacia. I need precise data on the distances between various locations. I want to know exact distances not an estimate from the Barrington Atlas and the use of a ruler. I would also be interested if I could mark points on a map and then trace the distance traveled on those points. Direct distances from point A to point B are not really helpful if they do not take into account that one had to go around a mountain or lake, or find a suitable river crossing. Can Pleiades help me?
