Universal Publishers (Australia)

Last updated

Universal Publishers
Industry Map-making
Headquarters Sydney, Australia
Key people
Astrid Browne
Managing Director
ProductsUBD-Gregory's Street Directories and maps
Website https://www.hardiegrant.com/au/travel [ dead link ]

Universal Publishers produce the ubiquitous UBD-Gregory's street directories in Australia. The names of these publications have come to be used as a generic term for street directories in many Australian cities.

Contents

Company profile

Universal publishes street directories, guides, maps and road atlases and is Australia's largest mapping and travel-related products publisher. The company distributes travel, language, and cartographic ranges for Berlitz, Insight Guides, Michelin and Marco Polo.

Products

The above products were branded UBD prior to the 2012 editions when production of standalone Gregory's street directories ceased in favour of cobranded UBD-Gregory's directories retaining the UBD format, UBD-Gregory's Darwin 2013, 4th edition. The last standalone Gregory's directory was the commemorative 75th Edition Sydney street directory, published in 2011. [1]

2018 directories showed as being issued by UBD as a subsidiary to Hardie Grant Travel while 2019 directories show as being issued by Hardie Grant Travel with no mention of UBD although the Hardie Grant website shows the publisher as UBD Gregory's.

Comprehensive directories

While primarily street directories, UBD and Gregory's also contain details on public transport (train and light rail, tickets and prices), bicycle paths, suburb and postcode details, public parks and reserves, landmarks (such as commercial buildings, telephone boxes, pubs and restaurants), attractions, and also boat mooring details in recognised docks. They also contain maps of university campuses and crematoria. Prior to the UBD-Gregory's merger the UBD Compact street directories also contained a 'Cityside guide' with tourist information.

Cartography

The rendering of roads in most city and town maps uses the traditional drawing of two lines with the road name printed in between, (known as 'double casing'). In the UBD Melbourne directory [2] maps show a single line with the name above or below the road to make it more appealing to people familiar with the Melway street directory, however older Melbourne UBD maps, such as those from the 1980s or earlier, used the double casing method. This mapping style is also used for road atlas maps and main road maps.

UBD products are notorious for continuing to contain copyright traps: fictitious streets or buildings or other features, included for purposes of identifying competitor's products that have copied UBD's data without fieldchecking it. For this reason, UBD's and Gregory's products cannot be relied on completely for historical research. An example of a copyright trap is the 'boomerang factory' that appeared for many years on the UBD map of Canberra, in the industrial suburb of Fyshwick, on the corner of Newcastle and Barrier streets, which location was in fact an exgovernment furniture depot. In other cases short dead-end streets or laneways (with or without names), or long-forgotten proposed roads, may appear.

Because of potential legal ramifications, regarding deliberately publishing erroneous information, copyright traps were removed from all mapping products in the 1990s.

As UBD's products are mainly designed for motorists, they do not show all pedestrian laneways in a city, particularly in cities like Canberra which have many footpaths connecting adjacent streets. Particularly for pedestrians and cyclists, the products are less useful.

Related Research Articles

<i>Melway</i>

Melway, colloquially referred to as Melways or The Melways, is a street directory for Melbourne, Victoria, Australia and its immediate surrounds, including the city of Geelong. Formerly a highly ubiquitous directory, Melway is currently in its 50th edition—the 2024 edition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ambarvale, New South Wales</span> Suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Ambarvale is a suburb of south-western Sydney in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Ambarvale is located 55 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Campbelltown and is part of the Macarthur region. The suburb is predominantly residential and contains a mix of public and private housing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Goodwood Road, Adelaide</span>

Goodwood Road is a major north–south arterial road, approximately 10 kilometres long, in Adelaide, South Australia. It runs between the Adelaide city centre and Adelaide's southern suburbs of Pasadena and Panorama.

Ausway is an Australian cartography and publishing company that produces comprehensive street directories and maps. In addition to its directories, Ausway also produces laminated, folded and rolled maps of varying sizes and formats, 200dpi digital map images, and index data. Ausway markets a satellite navigation unit loaded with their mapping data, branded as Navway.

Kensington Road is a main road in the South Australian capital city of Adelaide, linking the Adelaide city centre to its eastern suburbs.

Fullarton Road is a main road in the South Australian capital city of Adelaide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cross Road, Adelaide</span>

Cross Road is a major arterial road that travels east–west through the inner southern suburbs of the Australian city of Adelaide. It is designated route A3.

Melbourne Street is a street situated in the Adelaide suburb of North Adelaide, South Australia. It is the main commercial area of the second-largest of the three grids that comprise North Adelaide. It was named after William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, who was British Prime Minister when the South Australia Foundation Act received parliamentary approval.

Morphett Street is a main street in the west of the city centre of Adelaide, South Australia, parallel to King William Street and numbered from north to south. At its northern end it is part of the West End of Adelaide, a thriving cultural and entertainment precinct, with the Lion Arts Centre on the south-western corner of its junction with North Terrace.

Melway Perth was a street directory for the city of Perth, Western Australia. It was published by Ausway, using indexing and mapping data from Landgate. It competed with the UBD and Gregory's Perth street directories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flinders Street, Adelaide</span> Street in Adelaide, South Australia

Flinders Street is a main street in the city centre of Adelaide, South Australia. It runs from the northern end of Victoria Square to East Terrace. It is one of the intermediate-width streets of the Adelaide grid, at 1+12 chains wide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unley Road</span> Road in Unley, South Australia

Unley Road is a road in the City of Unley, located south of the City of Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. It runs from South Terrace to Cross Road, where it becomes Belair Road. The road was named after the family name of the wife of Thomas Whistler, owner of land in Unley which was laid out around 1857.

References

  1. Brown, Malcolm (19 August 2011). "Gregory's relegated to memory lane as directory comes to dead end". Smh.drive.com.au. Archived from the original on 13 October 2013.
  2. Universal Press (2003) UBD 2003 Melbourne & Surrounds Street Directory 38th Edition