My great interest in history led me recently to volunteer for an ongoing project to establish a Turkish National Surveying and Cadastre Museum. I have been appointed as the youngest member of the official working team, among experts, academicians, government representatives and seniors. To begin with I have been asked to search for and collate information about topic-related content of museums and collections.

My first move was to go through the pages of a book on the history of surveying written by one of my professors during studies for my Bachelors degree. I then looked for my photo album of museum visits, the contents of which were mostly taken during international congresses and training courses over the past eight years. Full of joy and dreams of the monumental establishment on which I was engaged, I googled keywords and after a few hours already had dozens of collection sites around the world.

I ‘virtually' accessed many items; to name a few - as you may guess - ancient monuments describing surveyors, map-plans drawn on cave surfaces, tablets, manuscripts, chains, maps carved on limestone, theodolites, early photogrammetric work; and then bulky hardware and computers, satellite images, GPS, laser scanners - the list could go on and on. There were also letters, life stories, B&W photos of survey camps for exhibition.

The above list may remind some readers of the early days of their careers. To newer generations, including myself, this seems a fantastic journey of exploration to the roots, reaching back to our professional ancestors.

Today Geomatics is a function of man, nature and technology. We have served society since the beginning of civilizations. Our roles have clearly been hugely expanded over recent decades through the demands and technology that belong to what some call ‘the information age'. And yet I also wonder about future applications. From my point of view, a museum dedicated to the efforts of men and women in their own time should be a showcase where the next generation of professionals can explore their past and step to the future of Geomatics.