A lot has been said about the death of paper maps and some of it is turning out to be true. The OS on the other hand is coming up with genuinely interesting and useful value additions to its paper maps, making them worth a buy. Last week the OS Select series, which allows anyone to site-center their map literally 'avoid a life on the edge' were released in a thinner packaging and enhanced print and paper quality. The OS is also giving away free-maps-for-11-year-olds in a bid to encourage geography and environmental studies. The novel use of lenticular technology (more popularly used for 3D viewing) for viewing multiple layers of information is another effort at keeping the 'paper-map' alive.

The incentives given for implementing e-government and how they at times unwittingly help encourage the use of paper based maps is explained by Mehdi Khosrowpour in his book - Practicing E-government:A Global Perspective. And finally, the sheer pleasure of spreading a folded map on the bonnet of your SUV and planning where to go next is not something a 3" screen on a NOKIA can ever offer- so the 'papier carte' will live on...