Maplines Winter 2011

Global MapAid Looking for volunteers 6

The Art of Mapping See pages 8 – 9 Letter to the Editors 7

UKCC Paris Report 20

Winter 2011 – £3.00

From the Editors

A

s your Maplines team compiled this latest feast of cartographic delights it struck me as interesting how often we see or hear reference of maps being linked to art or vice versa. Our wonderful cover image and feature article on The Art of Mapping is an obvious case. But as I began to delve a little deeper, the more I read, the more examples I found and this lead me to question what other natural values the fruits of our labour provides?

GREAT RAILWAY MAPS OF THE WORLD

Maps clearly, first and foremost, are intended as navigational aids, but as I hear time and time again from interested onlookers, people are also drawn to maps simply to look and admire the result as a whole. At university, when I was asked to submit thesis proposals for my MSc., I contemplated an analysis of the mapsheet as a piece of art. I am convinced that the choice the cartographer makes when positioning the map features and geographical extent on a sheet can add to its overall artistic value and I was interested to see whether this could be measured in some way. However, such compositional freedom is not always possible in a sheet series.

A beautifully illustrated, detailed and unique histor y of the World’s greatest railway maps, brimming with wonderful designs, histor y, facts, anecdotes and data as well as full colour reproductions of every map.

Should you have an interest or a view on this topic we would love to hear from you and we can kick off the debates early ahead of next year’s Symposium, which features sections on visualisation and art in cartography. We hope you enjoy the pages ahead and we wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

Adam On behalf of Lynda, Martin, Adam and Mark Maplines Editors

Just published

Mark Ovenden ISBN: 9781846143915 Particular Books, £20

Trains have been running for two hundred years. The histor y of the railway is also the histor y of Britain – and France, and America, and Japan, and Russia, amongst many others. Yet, this is the first ever collection of the diversity of World railway cartography ever produced.

CITIES OF THE CLASSICAL WORLD An Atlas and Gazetteer of 120 Centres of Ancient Civilization Colin McEvedy ISBN: 9781846144271 Allen Lane, £25

Summer Quiz The winner of our Summer quiz is Alison Ewington.

Congratulations Alison , your maps are on their way.

A unique histor y of the cities of the classical World, with 120 specially drawn, to-scale maps.

Summer quiz solution 1 Statue of Charles I. Plaque marks the spot from which all distances from London are measured 2 1:5684 (precisely!!)

3 St Peter's and Milan Cathedral (apologies – the question should have referred to Florence Cathedral as the third largest Christian church in Italy and not as we stated, in the World) 4 3.99 degrees

A labour of love for many, many years, Cities of the Classical World was created by Colin McEvedy and completed upon his death by his family and close friends.

From Rome to Constantinople, Thessaloniki to York, drawing on an enormous number of reference materials, some rare and others never translated into English, this is a unique perspective on each of these ancient centres.

Editorial Contact details: Senior Editor: Lynda Bailey Senior Editor, Design & Production: Martin Lubikowski Editor: Adam King Editor, Design & Production: Mark Sansom

Deadline for copy for the Spring 2012 edition is 14 February

maplines.editors@gmail.com

© The British Cartographic Society 2011

The Magazine of the British Cartographic Society

Volume 17, 3rd Issue, Winter 2011 Registered Charity No. 240034

Illustrations in this issue Front Cover: Emma Johnson.

'Dislocation: Time and Place' (main image). Peter Dykhuis 'Inventories' (detail) both images courtesy of TAG Fine Arts. p4-5 Courtesy of MapAction. p8-9 Jonathan Parsons 'Terminator Maquette', Jeremy Wood, My Ghost,

2 • Winter 2011 / Maplines

The views expressed in Maplines are those of the Editors and Contributors and not necessarily those of the BCS. If you would like to sponsor the Maplines Quiz please contact the Editors.

Elsayed - Twist Question full (extract).

All images courtesy of TAG Fine Arts p14-15 Stowe map courtesy of Stowe Area Association. Compass roses copyright Resort Maps. p16-17 Intergraph p24 HARVEY Maps All other photography copyright: Lynda Bailey, Martin Lubikowski, Mark Sansom, Adam King or the BCS

Visit the BCS website at www.cartography.org.uk

Notes from our President

A

s your President I was invited by the Earl of Selbor ne GBE FRS, Chairman, and members of the Foundation for Science and Technolog y to the Learned and Professional Societies’ Annual Luncheon, on 7 October at the House of Lords. The Foundation's purpose is to provide a neutral platform for debate of policy issues that have a science, engineering or technolog y element. The Foundation organises dinner/discussions and workshops on relevant issues when parliament is sitting . Soon after an event a two-page summar y is posted on the Foundation’s site, www.foundation.org .uk and later a report appears in the Foundation's journal.

So, in my best bib and tucker I went to London; entry to the House of Lords was to be through Black Rod’s Garden Entrance, then through security, hence the badge, across The Royal Court and into the reception and dining area over-looking the River Thames.

There were about sixty people at the luncheon from a wide range of organisations and charities covering occupations such as builders’ merchants, teachers, chemists, mariners, mathematicians, engineers and medical scientists; the only person I knew was Peter Chapman-Andrews, Director of Royal Institute of Navigation.

Appropriately, the after-lunch speaker at this year’s event was Andrew Hind CB, Editor of Charity Finance and formerly Chief Executive of the Charity Commission. BCS is, of course, a charity and Council Members are Trustees of the Society. This is important as Trustees have and must accept ultimate responsibility for directing the affairs of their charity and ensure that it is solvent, well-run and delivering the charitable outcomes for which it has been set up.

Andrew Hind began by telling us that there are over 200,000 charities in the UK, over 1 million people give their time to charitable work, there are 750,000 paid staff and the ‘business’ is worth £50bn a year.

The first formal charity was set up in the sixth century in Canterbur y. But back to more recent times, the recession has had an effect on charitable contributions. The large well-known charities such as the RNIB and RNLI have coped comparatively well as have the small charities but the mid-size organisations have suffered most.

An issue which the Charity Commission had considered and was still being discussed was whether or not trustees should be paid. It would be difficult to correlate performance and pay; nevertheless it might encourage people to join charitable boards.

We were reminded that charitable organisations must reach out to those outside their membership in order to maintain their charitable status. We, in BCS, do this through our Better Mapping series of events and more recently through the Restless Earth schools initiative.

At lunch, I sat next to Sir Geoffrey Chipperfield KCB, a Foundation Council Member, who was particularly interested in our Restless Earth programme and asked for my business card. Whether anything will come of it – we’ll have to wait and see.

A Very Happy New Year to All Peter Jolly BCS President

National Geographic New Mapmaker Award

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he Society's President, Peter Jolly, presented the National Geographic Society New Mapmaker Award to Mike Wilburn, a mapmaker at the University of Oregon, for his entry ' Mount Rainier: A Climber's Paradise' while on a recent visit to Redlands.

Visit the BCS website at www.cartography.org.uk

Overall the judging panel considered that Mike's work provides an attractive and informative introduction to the climbing routes of Mount Rainer and their use. The use of graphics and choice of colours both add to the overall attraction of the piece. The panel noted that the design works well at sizes from A3 up to A1. Mike later attended the BCS AGM in London (pictured).

Maplines / Winter 2011 • 3

At the beginning of March, the aid charity MapAction deployed response teams to assist with the humanitarian crisis in Libya. On the afternoon of 3rd March, the charity used an Océ ColorWave 600 to print wall maps for the team to take to Cairo that very evening

Rapid Mapping S

ince 2004, MapAction has helped in 25 emergencies including the Asian tsunami, earthquakes, volcanoes, floods and tropical storms. It can deploy a fully trained and equipped mapping team anywhere in the World, often within a few hours of an alert.

‘But before we can respond to a disaster, our first need is for information. Where are the affected people? Where are the relief resources? Who is doing what already?’ explains Chief Executive of the charity, Nigel Woof.

MapAction delivers this vital information in the form of maps. ‘By conveying a shared operational picture, our maps play a crucial role in delivering humanitarian aid to the right place, quickly,’ he says.

An age-old tradition for 2011 The cartography world has existed ever since humans felt the need to explore the world and record what they found.

But now, in the 21st century, with almost all of the planet mapped and recorded in minute detail, map technology is still surging ahead. Today, cartography is at the centre of aid provision for global disasters and emergencies. ‘We have harnessed the power and portability of modern technology – particularly geographical information systems (GIS) and satellite 4 • Winter 2011 / Maplines

location systems (GPS),’ Nigel continues. ‘We can gather information on the ground, combine this with satellite images, and produce maps in the field, delivered directly to the rescue and relief agencies themselves.

‘In a perfect world, we would have access to a fast, high-quality, highresolution, large format printer everywhere we work. But, of course, that’s not possible. We can’t take large format printers out in the field – as much as we’d like to. But when we do have access to good printing, it’s invaluable. The potential to use Océ technology with 24 hours’ notice, is great. Our UN partners find that having a large-format map on the wall allows them to see the whole geography of an emergency site in order to visualise it and plan accordingly. When you arrive at an operation centre in an emergency, a map is the first thing you want – it becomes a hub for teams to work around and adds a lot of focus to people’s thinking as to how best to respond.’

A map allows a clear operational picture before entering hostile environments where MapAction volunteers can’t depend upon technology. A map that fits in someone’s pocket or that can be laid out for teams to coordinate around is far tougher and more reliable than a personal computer screen.

Maps for tough environments A printed map taken out into a disaster zone needs to be tough. It will be used in unpredicatable environments, held up in the rain, dropped on the floor, submerged in mud and folded many times, and still needs to be legible. In short, it needs to be the marine of the printed world, and Océ’s CrystalPoint technology is fast becoming the most sought-after product to achieve this.

Found in the Océ ColorWave 600, which is six times as fast as a liquid inkjet printer, it is rapidly setting new standards for on-demand map printing for organisations such as MapAction.

Map-printing technology in the past has often compromised on accuracy – a river and road that might be parallel can look as if they overlap. Yet Océ CrystalPoint technology can distinguish the finest of details.

Maps on demand At this very moment, MapAction is responding to the current crisis in Libya using maps printed on the Océ ColorWave 600 at ESRI (UK), the UK’s leading provider of GIS technology. GIS allows organisations to view, analyse and visualise data in order to reveal relationships, patterns, and trends. The company understands the importance of high-quality maps and is working with Océ to utilise CrystalPoint technology. It provides a service for its customers (one of which is MapAction) to create a customised map centred on

Visit the BCS website at www.cartography.org.uk

Crisis Mapping a particular area of interest, printed on demand on the Océ ColorWave 600.

Just like MapAction workers did under high pressure in order to respond to the crisis in Libya, customers can create their own map and take it home that same day.

‘Getting the right aid to people across and beyond Libyan territories poses a huge challenge of humanitarian intelligence gathering, planning and logistics for international aid agencies,’ explains Nigel. ‘MapAction teams will gather and communicate vital information about the rapidly changing picture within Libya and at its borders, using maps as the focal point.’

most of the world many times over, but there are still exciting times ahead for what must be the best-of-the-best when it comes to cartography. And Océ, it seems, is once again proudly at the forefront of this development.

Océ is paying a contribution to MapAction for each new placement of the Océ ColorWave 600 installed in a GIS/Mapping environment in 2011 and aims to donate £20,000 in 2011.

Courtesy of Richard Turner Océ First published in Océ's magazine 'Dialogue'

We may have explored many depths and heights on earth and mapped

Crystalpoint Technology: the Facts. Why is it perfect for rapid mapping?

• It uses a hard resin toner that can be applied by melting it, turning it to a jelly and jetting it on to any uncoated media • It can be applied to anything from very inexpensive plain white paper and recycled bond, to specialist materials for applications that

require more durability such as Tyvek® (DuPont). An uncoated Tyvek print is virtually indestructible • The composition of the toner and the nature of the crystallisation process that bonds to the media means the result is a resilient and water-fast finish

Visit the BCS website at www.cartography.org.uk

• Exceptionally accurate and intricate detail is achieved – vital for cartographers and mapping companies • The four points of reference for a printed map – quality, clarity, resolution, resilience – are all ticked

Maplines / Winter 2011 • 5

Population Mapping

Global MapAid – a call to action…

T

he mission of Global MapAid (GMA) is to scientifically map populations to identify poverty, providing a tool to help governments, business people and development organisations to target and plan efficient intervention strategies to lift people out of poverty. Our impartial maps inspire and encourage the best chances for bankrolling of sustainable jobs and small businesses.

In addition to the vital need to create maps to show where sustainable jobs are needed, GMA researches the numbers and types of jobs that will match local market needs. So, our maps are about creating a passion with numbers:

Maps

Zero Maps

Vision

Blindness

Inspiration of Networks

Lethergy of Networks

Intelligent Action

Inaction

Businessman sets Precedent During the 1890s many Londoners lived in terrible poverty. Charles Booth was a wealthy businessman who believed that social reformers had over-estimated that 25% of the population lived below the poverty line. He paid for a scientific survey to prove the matter once and for all and the subsequent London Poverty Map 1898 showed that about 33% of Londoners lived in abject poverty. This scientific discovery raised the level of debates in Parliament and throughout the country’s leadership.

Within 20 years of his 1889 map, the British government set up a state old age pension and massively increased universal education possibilities and initiated huge slum clearances, all of which began to create a workforce that was happier, better equipped and very much

more economically productive.

Where will ‘today’s Charles Booths’ come from, to show the way for World Leaders ?

We are looking for new Charles Booths, to partner with us in specific locations, and build a meaningful legacy.

Volunteers needed CONTACT US NOW

+44 7951 958758 info@globalmapaid.org

Global MapAid

GMA was star ted at Stanford University in 2003 and since then has been operational in several poverty hotspots including South Africa, Indonesia and Afghanistan, winning the suppor t of our Patron, Nobel Winner, Desmond Tutu.

The Global Problem The World is facing a unique set of problems, and one of the biggest is hunger related poverty which UNICEF claims kills over 10 million children per year.

1889 London Poverty Map – Clerkenwell Central London

The Global Solution To beat hunger-poverty, the creation of meaningful wealth creating jobs is an imperative: ‘Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime…’

Due diligence is required, firstly to examine and map the number of people below the poverty line.

Secondly to examine and map the type and number of sustainable jobs that could be created to yield the maximum chances of success.

6 • Winter 2011 / Maplines

2000 Bartholomew road map – Clerkenwell Visit the BCS website at www.cartography.org.uk

Letter to the Editors

Standardisation, it would seem, works where there is a professional need for maps and a strong regulator y body, such as the IHO or ICAO, but, despite many suggestions over the years, not for things like tourist or economic maps.

Returning to terminology and tying in with the Notes from the Carto-Guru on legends, I have recently reviewed several papers on automating map design by French authors, written in English for publication in journals or conference proceedings. They often use the phrase ‘designing the map legend’ in a way we would not in normal English usage. I would take this phrase to mean the organisation of the elements in the legend, deciding on the order or grouping of symbols, the use of columns, type sized for various captions and explanations, etc. However, in these French articles ‘designing the legend’ clearly means something quite different. They use it to refer to determining the form, dimension and colour of the symbols for the map, something I would call the ‘symbol specification’. Their view is that once

Internationalisation does pose many problems to cartography & GIS. There has been a great deal of work done in recent years on developing ontologies to try and better define the content and meaning of data in databases, but we are often confronted with fundamental problems, such as the use of the same term to mean different things.

For example, in the UK we use the term pavement to refer to the part of a road where pedestrians walk. In the US the pavement is the road surface and pedestrians use the side-walk. Clearly a navigation system directing pedestrians to use the pavement in the US could have dire consequences.

While I don’t think many readers would be confused by the use of ‘transit map’ to refer to what we in the UK would call a ‘public transpor t map’, neither do I think an international audience would be confused by using our conventional term. Others however may wish to be more pedantic and suggest that in BCS publications we should avoid creeping Americanisation by the use of ‘color’ and other such spellings (although I note ‘colour’ is used in a heading – presumably inserted by an Editor).

Visit the BCS website at www.cartography.org.uk

David Forrest University of Glasgow

What’s in a word? Or you say transit and I say....

I

was interested in the Editorial in the last issue of Maplines where there was debate over the use of the term ‘transit’, whether we should be concerned about standardisation of terminology and how we deal with articles from international authors.

Standardisation has always been a major issue in cartography – should we or shouldn’ t we fix the specifications of our maps. In favour, it potentially makes them easier for a wide audience to use without having to repeatedly refer to the legend; against is that standardisation stifles innovation and development. Standardisation has been successful in certain areas of mapping, such as hydrographic & aeronautical charts, but there is no such thing as the ‘standard’ topographic map, even if many of us can easily read one from almost any country without having to refer to the legend for most things.

the legend is ‘designed’ the attributes are then automatically applied to the map. I often say to my students that it is easy to design a map legend, but much harder to design a map. The reason for this is that in the legend the symbols are seen in isolation; they are easy to pick out and only have to contrast with the plain background. Once they are in a map context, they are competing with other elements and something that can be clearly identified in the legend may become difficult or impossible to distinguish in the map. So, good legend design is important to effective map use, but it does not mean the map will be well designed. I have no problem with the concept of automatically applying a set of specifications to a dataset to produce the map, only with the terminology used.

Maplines / Winter 2011 • 7

art of mapping L

ast month, the Air Gallery on Dover Street played host to an eclectic but beautiful collection of maps, curated by the Islington-based art dealers and publishers TAG Fine Arts. From a map of the UK made of recycled computer components, by Susan Stockwell, to imaginary drawings of spidery city grids by Robert Walden, none of the exhibits in The Art of Mapping could be called accurate or useful in the traditional sense. Instead the 22 artists responsible for the works made them to ask questions, to push the boundaries of mapping while celebrating the discipline’s undeniable beauty and artistry. Launched as part of the London Mapping Festival and accompanied by talks and events, the exhibition brought together art lovers, map enthusiasts and those working in the industry to explore the potential of the medium.

Library’s Magnificent Maps exhibition last year) were represented, and Simon Patterson’s iconic ‘The Great Bear’ – a reworking of Harry Beck’s London tube map – was on loan from the London Transport Museum.

Others such as Heidi Whitman and Dahlia Elsayed were showing their work in London for the first time. Over half the pieces were brand new commissions, representing their latest forays into the world of maps and cartography.

Many of us, however appreciative of maps, have a rather inconsistent relationship with them. Maps crop up in daily life with a mundane frequency that makes them easy to take for

granted, but at the same time we actively celebrate others as covetable visual items. Ironically it is often very difficult to pinpoint exactly when and why a map crosses the line from practical object into work of art. Many of the artworks on display began life as relatively undistinguished ‘everyday’ maps; cut, reshaped or painted over by the artists, they were transformed into something unique.

This playfulness and experimentation with the look and content of maps spilled over into the events that accompanied the display. In a panel discussion organised by TAG and Londonist.com, the academic James Cheshire showed a series of

Some of the artists involved are already well known in the UK. Grayson Perry and Stephen Walter (who both showed ambitious works at the British 8 • Winter 2011 / Maplines

Visit the BCS website at www.cartography.org.uk

London Mapping Festival inventive, colourful maps of London depicting data such as transport use, the distribution of common surnames, and the levels of industrial or commercial activity in different areas.

Though made for research purposes, many of them possessed an impressive beauty of their own.

Taxi driver John Kennedy gave the audience a spoken tour of the city streets, conjuring up a mental map by simply describing the journey out loud.

In the same discussion Stephen Walter explained how his artistic maps had developed from a fascination with suburbia and the humdrum signs and symbols we see around us every day, while in a separate artists’ talk on Saturday 19 November Claire Brewster, Dahlia Elsayed, Susan Stockwell and Heidi Whitman explained the inspiration behind their own work. The variety of their influences was surprising: from Claire’s interest in the unruliness of nature (in contrast to mankind’s ordered maps) to Dahlia’s attempts to map out a story before writing it, to Susan’s interest in recycling and politics, to Heidi’s exploration of human imagination and the processes of the brain, all came from completely independent angles.

In the end, that was one of the key messages behind the exhibition: maps are indispensable to us not just because they are useful. We love them because they engage us, acting as springboards to discuss and discover all kinds of different things about our world.

Many of the maps from The Art of Mapping will be on show at the London Art Fair in January 2012, and the majority of the work is currently available to view and purchase at TAG Fine Arts’ permanent space in Islington, London.

For more information or to view the catalogue, visit their website or contact the gallery.

TAG Fine Arts, Unit 129a Business Design Centre, 52 Upper Street, London N1 0QH info@tagfinearts.com 020 7688 8446 www.tagfinearts.com Visit the BCS website at www.cartography.org.uk

Maplines / Winter 2011 • 9

Omnium Gatherum World War Zee (or is it Zed?) Brad Pitt has recently been filming his new film, World War Z, in Glasgow. Glasgow city centre was dressed to look like Philadelphia.

Part of the street furniture included city centre maps. I took a photo of one that I thought other cartographers may find amusing .

The British spelling of Centre is used rather than the US spelling (Center)!

Craig Asquith craigasquith@aol.com

Try this on-line FM 100 Hue test to see how good your eyesight is at discerning colours: www.xrite.com/custom_page.aspx?PageID=77&Lang=en

A new take on the London Tube map For a zoomable – and legible – redesigned London ‘Tube’ map by Mark Noad, see: www.london-tubemap.com The designer’s intention, according to the colour-illustrated article by Tariq Tahir in the aptly-titled Metro, was to redraw ‘the Tube map so that it shows the routes and distances

Recently published by Haus Publishing this fictional account of the events leading to the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus, narrated by his brother Bartholomew, gives a wonderful insight into the life of cartographers and mariners in the fifteenth century. Highly recommended.

ISBN: 9781906598938.

10 • Winter 2011 / Maplines

between stations more accurately.’

Noad, commenting on the traditional Harry Beck 1931 map, calls that ‘a brilliant piece of information design’ but believed it needed an update.

On his redesigned map he says, ‘This is not intended as a replacement to the official version – it is simply another way to look at it.’

One of the more unique interactive city maps we have seen to date is the Reykjavík Center Map, an online map of Iceland’s capital. Yes, it’s a pushpin map, but it uses an isometric projection (which I’ve seen in some Chinese maps) and the base map is a veritable work of art – it’s not at all computer generated, and it looks like a watercolour. Snorri Þór Tryggvason, who worked on the map with some friends and sent me the link, wrote, ‘The mapmaking took two years and over 3,000 hours to complete,’ and I believe him. See it for yourself on: www.reykjavikcentermap.com Reykjavík Center Map first appeared on The Map Room: A Weblog About Maps on June 26, 2011. Copyright © 2011 Jonathan Crowe. Distributed under a Creative Commons licence.

Visit the BCS website at www.cartography.org.uk

a miscellaneous collection of people and things

Maps in unusual settings Whilst in Florence in the summer Martin spotted this shop window. Every item here is decorated with maps. Leather goods and all. Obviously the fashion conscious Italians think highly of maps.

Spotted in Oxford by our eagle eyed President. This is one of three Minis which have OS 1:50,000 mapping wrapped round them showing the area in which a letting agency operates.

Published earlier this year The Map Reader is a portable BCS Symposium! It is packed with information on all aspects of the current cartographic scene. It has five sections containing contributions by a host of authorititive authors. The sections are Conceptualising Mapping, Technologies of Mapping, Cartographic Aesthetics and Map Design, Cognitions and Cultures in Mapping and Power and Politics of Mapping. To get an up-to-date picture of the state of our craft, this is a reference that must be on your book shelf.

ISBN: 9780470742839.

Ravensbourne: the River Ravensbourne rises at Caesar’s Well in Keston, flows through Bromley, Lewisham and Greenwich and is joined by several tributaries, among which the beautifully named River Quaggy (also known as Kyd Brook).

It ends in the Thames in Greenwich Reach (also known as Deptford Creek), west of Greenwich proper.

In 1580, Queen Elizabeth I knighted Francis Drake on board the Golden Hind in Deptford Creek after his circumnavigation of the globe.

Website Watch Check out this fascinating web site, picked up by David Barbour of Stirling Surveys. It is the British Gliding Assoc and it has some interesting 3D maps of the UK

showing which areas most gliding takes place in. www.gliding.co.uk/sailplaneandgliding/recentarticles.htm#SG1

Visit the BCS website at www.cartography.org.uk

Contributions to Omnium Gatherum are always welcome. If you have any map-related stories, facts or announcements please send them to Martin Lubikowski on the Editors’ email address, see page 2.

Maplines / Winter 2011 • 11

Courtesy of www.strangemaps.wordpress.com

The Lost Rivers of London #11

Restless Earth 12 • Winter 2011 / Maplines

Workshop at Lampton School, Hounslow For the first time, BCS took its Restless Earth workshop on the road when we held a day long session at the Lampton School in Hounslow.

The morning session was devoted to year 10 students studying GCSE Geography at Lampton, in the afternoon we delivered the workshop to a mix of Lampton students and those from six other local schools.

Overall, 140 students attended, which was certainly a different experience from delivering to thirty students at the 2011 Symposium.

To cope with the large number of students at each workshop we arranged for suppor t from eight BCS volunteers from the Defence Geographic Centre, without whom chaos would have ensued.

The workshop has been designed with specific reference to post disaster mapping and the way that it can be used to suppor t Emergency Response Teams. Currently it focuses on the earthquake disaster in Japan with the exercise itself centred around the city of Sendai involving a series of practical activities that integrate good map design with GIS technolog y.

The workshop suppor ts both Edexcel and AQA Physical Geography modules entitled The Restless Earth, specifically the following key ideas: • Earthquakes occur at

constr uctive, destructive and conser vative plate margins.

Features of earthquakes: epicentre, focus, shock waves.

• The effects of earthquakes and responses to them. Primary and secondar y effects; immediate and long term responses.

• Tsunamis are a specific secondar y effect and can have devastating effects in coastal areas. A case study of a tsunami – its cause, effects and responses.

The day was very tiring, but very rewarding. Although the final products showed a huge variety of approaches to solving the problem, every group had incorporated elements of the solution and had come up with some innovative ways of portraying the information. Well done to Team R from the Lampton School who were judged the best map in the morning session and The Green School from Isleworth who were adjudged the winners in the afternoon.

We have had a very positive response to these workshops.

We will be conducting further schools-based events during the year on a country-wide basis, with planned events in Altrincham and Chatham already being discussed.

Visit the BCS website at www.cartography.org.uk

Mapping the Global Village BCS Symposium 2012 The British Cartographic Society will be holding its Annual Symposium for 2012 at the Basingstok e Countr y Hotel from Wednesday 13th to Friday 15th June 2012.

The title of the Symposium and our overall theme is ‘Mapping The Global Village’ and potential speakers are invited to submit papers on the topics below. As the world gets ready to converge for the Olympics in London, we are keen to ensure that we reflect this in the Symposium and would welcome papers on global issues.

• Olympic Mapping – mapping that has been generated to suppor t the Olympics, either for London 2012 or outputs that were generated to suppor t previous games.

• Transport Mapping – with several new renderings of the traditional tube map this year, we are interested in hearing proposals for other ways in which the mapping of transpor t networks has been dealt with.

• Visualisation – how is cartography used to help us visualise and interpret the landscape. We would like to develop the theme to illustrate how to render information to make it inclusive and easily understood.

Events

• The ‘Art’ in Cartography – the use of maps in art or as art.

• Keeping up with the times – papers on the way in which access to so much data and different ways of presenting it and using it have changed the cartographic landscape and what is likely to be the next ‘big thing’.

• Mapping Political Change – after the creation of the new country of South Sudan, we would be interested in papers that cover how changes have been mapped over time, including the portrayal of boundaries and borders and the way in which place names can have a fundamental role to play.

• Open Data – more and more geographic data is being made available to both the professional and casual user and we would be interested to have papers on what the change in access has meant and how the data is being used.

The latest information on the Symposium can be found at: www.cartography.org.uk/symposium

Visit the BCS website at www.cartography.org.uk

Pete Jones Chair, Programme Committee

Maplines / Winter 2011 • 13

A

trip to another country is invariably a ‘busman’s [sic] holiday’ for a geographer or cartographer. You will almost inevitably need to use maps, if just to navigate a metro system on a city break, and you cannot help but be fascinated by the natural and cultural landscapes you encounter.

As you enter hotels, shops and galleries you are constantly bombarded by adverts, leaflets, and brochures containing maps. Our family fly-drive holiday to New England was no exception. By the end my suitcase was nearing its limit with the added weight of maps picked up along the way! But are free maps worth their weight in excess bagage?

expletives, when required, were directed to ‘she’/‘her’ rather than ‘it’ – it is interesting how easily we anthropomorphise a piece of

Just to set the record straight, I have to admit to being a SatNav virgin prior to the trip, hard to believe in this day and age, but true (my only

But back to business – what carto-licious experience was on offer to the traveller seeking help and advice on their journey? Well... a

software. The other saving grace was our trusty ‘Rand McNally Regional Map of New England’ (‘One inch equals approximately 8.9 miles’) which I’ve hardly looked at, but which my trusty navigator (Mrs V) used to keep a suspicious eye on the SatNav’s advice.

Portland, to Bar Harbor, before turning inland to Vermont, then heading south through New Hampshire to Massachusetts, and then back to the coast at Rhode Island and Cap Cod). The maps appear to be totally individual and hand drawn, with some nice local touches, for example the sails of a windmill (Orleans, MA.), a clipper (South Yarmouth, MA.), and a snowflake (Stowe, Vermont) incorporated into the design of the compass roses. These street maps proved useful for the most part, even for driving, especially in dense urban areas. Their only major failing was the lack of true scale and direction, which occasionally had us walking somewhat longer between attractions, through rather tedious and humid suburban streets, than we had anticipated. While clearly reliant on sponsor s and with numerous adverts around the margin

‘Rounding Cape Cod by Clip Art’ tourist maps of New England previous experience was as a passenger in an AA breakdown truck!). The SatNav was much

appreciated as we negotiated the manic Boston traffic. As my prep for the holiday I had only read Bill Bryson’s ‘A Walk in the Woods’, concerning his trip along the Appalachian Trail - this had prepared me for bears and poison ivy, but not for death-dealing monster-trucks – thankfully US driving is actually very civilised once out of Boston. The SatNav rarely failed us, although when it did, it had us spinning in circles. The voice was female (probably a member of the Tea Party from her tone), so 14 • Winter 2011 / Maplines

pretty mixed bag of the good, the bad and the ugly! I deliberately did not undertake a scientific survey, but simply picked up maps as I found them in hotel foyers, information centres and such like. My haul amounted to some thirty-plus maps (I am sure it could have been many, many more if I had been trying harder – for goodness sake I was supposed to be having a break from work!). These ranged from detailed large scale maps leading you from a parking area to the site of fossilised dinosaur footprints in a road cutting, to smaller scale guides to the ’attractions and ser vices’ of a whole state (thank you Maine!). I am going to focus my attention for the rest of this article (in an earnest attempt at a critique of map design!) on the local ‘free’ maps designed to help the tourist negotiate the towns and cities of New England.

The most ubiquitous of these maps were those produced by Resor t Maps, and could be picked up at most of our stops (we drove north from Boston, via Salem and

(Bloody Mary’s at the Pancake Man, on Route 28), this did not detract from these quirky and individual maps. I give a nine out of ten for generally utility and fun design – ours were worked hard.

Almost all the other maps were

‘one-offs’ as far as I could make out.

Some like the map of Boston and Cambridge ‘sponsored by the Faneuil Hall Marketplace’ were just horrible – in this case poorly reproduced and badly cropped so that information was missing at the edges, it didn’t inspire confidence. While others like the Shopping Map and Guide for Mt.

Visit the BCS website at www.cartography.org.uk

Map Design Washington Valley, were a testament to a lack of design value attested by being covered in ugly, generic ‘drag and drop’ images of cyclist, trees and hikers. Fortunately, others like the ‘Main Street Chatham’ map designed by Eden Fox (I could not find any more examples, despite Googling them!), were little gems (an eight out of ten for this one). Their Chatham map folded out from a neat pocket sized item to a handsome 4x28 inch strip map (with resonances of John Ogilby!).

Most of the maps did not stray too far from the bounds of cartographic decency. One which I rather liked, but was not favoured by Mrs V, was an almost abstract map of Stowe (Stowe Area Association, Vermont).

The roads and the rivers which formed the main linear features were drawn as vibrant twisted ribbons and the symbols used for individual sites were colourful, clean and intuitively easy to understand. This chimed well with the ‘sophisticated’ arts and crafts message of the location the association was trying to sell.

In comparison, the drab black and white photocopied map available

from the Provincetown Chamber of Commerce (Cape Cod), another vibrant centre of the arts, compares badly with its inland cousin (coloured, but hardly more exciting versions exist on the web).

If Provincetown must stay monochrome, they could take a lesson from an elegant blue on white gallery and restaurant map produced by the Wellfleet Art Galleries Association (Cape Cod).

A clear and simple road map (solid blue roads on white, with white lettering) is adorned with neat illustrations, including a quirky compass rose composed of four interlocking fish! This was perhaps my favourite for its clarity and simplicity.

Another favourite (another nine out of ten), although a much more elaborate production, was the lovingly depicted oblique pictorial view of ‘Salem Maritime National Historic Site’, produced by the National Parks Ser vice. Reminiscent of the highly informative fold-out maps and illustrations of the National Geographic, this ‘map’ provides a beautiful rendering of Salem’s wharfs and surroundings, with numerous other illustrations of

Visit the BCS website at www.cartography.org.uk

Alex and Peter are keen to promote further events and are looking to develop a steering group and regional network of Design Group members to facilitate this.

Please contact: peter.vujakovic@canterbury.ac.uk alexander.kent@canterbury.ac.uk artefacts, a cross-section of a typical East Indiaman (the ship John), and a world map trade routes. Why can’t all maps be this good?

Peter Vujakovic Canterbur y Christ Church University (Co-convenor BCS Design Group)

Maplines / Winter 2011 • 15

Corporate Member Focus

Hexagon Multi-faceted and Multi-talented

I

n October 2010, Hexagon, a leading global provider of integrated design, measurement, and visualisation technologies, completed the purchase of Intergraph Corporation. Bringing Intergraph into the same family as some of the biggest names in geomatics, such as ERDAS, GeoMax, Leica, and Novatel, raised the profile of Hexagon within the geospatial community and generated plenty of questions around intent, potential, and opportunity.

Hexagon's technologies measure with great precision and rapidly provide access to large amounts of complex data that is visualised via engineering and geospatial software. Purchasing companies such as Leica GeoSystems had given Hexagon a firm hold in the earth-based remote sensing arena.

The addition of Intergraph brings a rich set of capabilities for analysis, data management, visualisation, and dissemination. In addition, Intergraph and Hexagon complement each other well in their geographical areas of business.

From Sensor to Internet Many users of geospatial solutions were already using technology from different parts of Hexagon. Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSi) has used Leica hardware, first the Wild brand and now with Leica SmartNet Network RTK. Since the introduction of the ADS40 16 • Winter 2011 / Maplines

large-format digital camera in 2005, OSi has provided imagery at 25cm resolution for national map updates and orthorectified imagery of urban areas with a 25cm resolution. It also allowed the DSW700 film scanners to engage in systematic scanning of the organisation’s film archive into data management software. The software then provided automated and accessible long-term storage and management of digital imagery files.

The ALS50 airborne laser scanner is engaged mainly on commercial activities, including flood mapping, height data for orthorectification and infrastructure design projects. OSi’s photogrammetry and remote sensing department primarily uses Leica Photogrammetry Suite (LPS) with the air triangulation application (ORIMA).

The data extraction for map update is PRO600 embedded in LPS. With ERDAS APOLLO, OSi implemented OGC®compliance in its data storage model with a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) to support the management and distribution of information within the organisation.

Having an image-serving capability was paramount for OSi, one of the reasons it selected ERDAS APOLLO. The software offers on-the-fly geoprocessing through a powerful implementation of the OGC Web Processing Service (WPS) specification. End-users can

execute robust and complex geoprocesses; an end-user can run an entire model, such as change detection, site analysis, or elevation change that is completely contained within a single WPS. In addition, Intergraph has plans to incorporate a photogrammetric data model into ERDAS APOLLO, simplifying the workflow from the desktop to the enterprise.

Enterprise Data Management More recently, a Consortium, led by Intergraph Corporation and including 1Spatial and Snowflake Software, successfully completed the delivery of the Geospatial Data Management System (GDMS) to Great Britain’s national mapping agency, Ordnance Survey.

Ordnance Survey’s national geographic database describes more than 440 million individual features, including every road, building, pillar box, and field. Each year, more than one million changes to the landscape need to be measured and assimilated into this database using data sources that include field surveyors, remote sensing commercial data capture companies, and other national agencies. This creates a data management task of extraordinary complexity and volume that requires efficient planning, control, and processing.

Visit the BCS website at www.cartography.org.uk

People • Companies • Products The new GDMS system provides an integrated, enterprise wide solution for the management, planning, coordination, and control of Ordnance Survey’s data capture and production activities, using state-of-the-art software technologies from the three partner companies.

The system had to meet challenging and exacting requirements for both performance and process control. It has been developed to support up to 600 staff and 5,000 update jobs daily,

standards-based information exchange.

For the public, Bilbao’s geoportal, named GeoBilbao, offers a fast and simple way to access information and services using a Web browser, without the need to install software. Its development involved the consolidation and migration of several existing online services and integrating them with the municipality’s website to support public information services. This project also established a common development environment for the city’s map-based Web applications that leverages the

which can involve the retrieval of up to 36 million map feature records and the posting of 300,000 updates. After formal acceptance in December 2010, followed by successful pre-production trials, the new system achieved a successful ‘Go Live’ in July 2011 and is now in full production mode. Most significantly, the system will ensure consistency between Ordnance Survey products and will enable it to develop new, innovative products to address both current and future business needs. Combined with Ordnance Survey’s deep knowledge and experience of its data, it provides a sturdy and effective platform for the future.

standardised components of the new portal. These resources will help ensure simple, flexible, and sustainable integration of both internal systems and public access e-government services.

Spatial Data Infrastructure The City of Bilbao selected Intergraph’s Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) solution to provide a definitive geoportal source of spatial information within the municipality and equip employees with key tools to support decision-making, such as map-based data searches, analysis, and editing.

SDI facilitates simple and efficient data sharing and collaboration with other governmental agencies through

National Mapping The Netherlands’ Kadaster Land Registry and Mapping Agency (Kadaster), has been working with Intergraph since 2006, using the GeoMedia®and TerraShare®product portfolios to gather, store, and display large quantities of geospatial data, including aerial, satellite, and other imagery. The role of the organisation is to collect data on registered properties in the Netherlands, record the data in

‘Citizens can now access a diverse set of geo-referenced information (e.g., traffic density, parking occupancy rate, video camera feeds) using real-time data,’ says Manu Roibal, CIO, Bilbao City Council. ‘Using Intergraph’s SDI solution, Bilbao citizens can also obtain information on public facilities and infrastructure, Wi-Fi zones, acoustic levels, and maps of electromagnetic emissions.’

Visit the BCS website at www.cartography.org.uk

In the Summer Maplines, I said I would contact Corporate members after the summer break.

Sadly, due to business pressures, I have not been able to do this... yet! I will now be contacting you all in November to ask you to take part in a survey to find out what you think of BCS; its strengths and weaknesses, the opportunities and threats that exist and which things you feel give the best value and benefit from your membership.

I hope the results from this survey will enable BCS to ensure that its offering in terms of news coverage, communications and membership benefits remain relevant to you all in the future.

Thank you for your ongoing suppor t!

John Pepper Corporate Liaison Officer public registers and cadastral maps, and make the information available to businesses, government officials, and the public. Kadaster responds to more than 20 million requests for information each year. The Netherlands’ National Mapping Agency, which produces geographical maps of the Netherlands at various scales, also forms part of the organisation.

‘Our mission is to provide customers with fast, reliable, and up-to-date geospatial information for a wide range of property transaction and land-use needs,’ said Tom Dijkstra, director of services with Kadaster. ‘Due to the massive volume of requests we receive for such information, we would have been less successful without the powerful, flexible solutions and support from Intergraph. Based on its innovative, open product platform and experienced, dedicated professionals, Continued on page 19...

Maplines / Winter 2011 • 17

NACIS 2011 Colo(u)ring outside the lines

N

ow that I am firmly exiled in the United States after my escape from UK academia and lure to the DArc Side of Redlands, CA I’m beginning to explore the cartographic landscape of North America more closely. This inevitably means getting involved in the various meetings and conferences that take place on this side of the pond to meet with like-minded carto-geeks of which there are quite a few! So in October I packed my bags and departed the sunny climes of my new home in Souther n California for the rather wintery Madison, Wisconsin for the North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS) annual conference. It was a bit of a struggle to locate where I’d packed all my UK winter clothing (it’s just shor ts and sandals in SoCal dude!) but I duly wrapped up and got going.

NACIS, founded in 1980, comprises specialists from a wide range of mapping backgrounds. In some respects the academic contribution is greater than we normally get at the BCS Symposium but it may be that the attendance, about 600 people, simply magnified their contribution. I had plenty to keep me busy including a couple of presentations and some workshops.

Pre-conference begins with a one-day Practical Cartography session which involves a day-long plenary style event with 20 minute sessions by

18 • Winter 2011 / Maplines

individuals and organisations exploring particular practical issues in cartography. Some offer tips and tricks, some explore new ways of working, some offer more conceptual ideas. It’s a good format and the variety makes for an enjoyable day that touches on almost every aspect of modern cartography. I contributed, along with some of my new Esri colleagues, demonstrating some of the new cartographic capabilities in ArcGIS. I got to deliver a live demo using only the internet which was either brave or stupid. Luckily the internet held out and it all worked to plan. Interestingly, over half of the sessions dealt with web cartography.

This should ser ve as a warning to cartography…this is where we’re headed both in terms of publication format and also design and production environments. Print is not dead…but the balance is shifting rapidly and unabated.

The conference proper ran over two days with three parallel streams and the organiser s had done a very good job organising papers and sessions into patterns that made sense so you weren’t faced with the usual conference dilemma of choosing between two sessions competing equally for your interest. I had a couple of co-authored papers and was also invited to represent BCS on a panel discussion of geospatial organisations. Other panelists represented included NACIS, the Association of American

Geographers (AAG), Canadian Cartographic Association (CCA), Cartography and Geographic Information Society (CaGIS), International Cartographic Association (ICA) and WhereCAMP. We had a lively discussion as it became clear that there were many overlapping interests and also issues facing the different organisations. Issues of relevance, outreach, education, membership and participation are common themes as cartography struggles to adjust to LAG (Life After Google).

While the undeniable impact of the launch of Google Maps on 8 February 2005 has been to reignite the world’s interest in maps, cartography and cartographic organisations have been slow to react to grasp the opportunities presented. While large corporations surge ahead in their mapping endeavors, paradoxically, cartography has faced a period of uncertainty as it struggles for identity and purpose (as it did when GIS first appeared in the 80s/90s). The fact we have so many organisations (and the UK is no different) is part of the problem and it was refreshing to see the North American organisations look far more positively on the ideas collaborating than we’ve managed in the UK in recent times. Issues of identity and suchlike are no different to those that always get cited when we look at possibilities of holding joint events (or, dare I say it,

Visit the BCS website at www.cartography.org.uk

NACIS 2011 merging) with other UK societies to create a stronger unified framework and network but the difference in North America is they seem willing to find ways to deal with them. BCS initiatives such as Better Mapping, the Restless Earth schools programme and the Introduction to Cartography book were well received and, of course, it wasn’t difficult to demonstrate the importance of BCS given its histor y and Journal.

The NACIS conference theme was ‘Does design make a difference?’

This was familiar territory for me given recent Symposium themes and also the BCS Better Mapping series I have been fortunate to contribute to. It was reassuring that many of the same ideas and themes we’ve explored in the UK in recent years are also those that concern our North American colleagues. There were plenty of sessions that tackled this issue and explored what it is we mean by design, can maps be made with an absence of design and is cartography more about artistr y than mechanistic constr uction. In the age where anyone can be a mapmaker one of the outcomes of this debate seemed to be that those who see themselves as cartographers are beginning to refer to themselves as designer s. So perhaps what differentiates cartographers from the world of map makers is the ability to bring design to their craft.

There were a good number of new people in attendance and a mark of the changes in cartography was no more evident than in the session organised and run by Google that included five people who work with Google, none of whom had any cartographic background. Only a few years ago they wouldn’t even have attended yet here they were taking centre stage orchestrating a discussion on online mapping.

Someone amusingly asked what you call a room of non-cartographers.

Answer? Google. Yet here we were, a room full of people who have been making maps for decades having to deal with this massive shift. These, and people like them, are the ones who for years have shaped the cartographic community; people who have formal cartographic training but are now immersed in an epoch of

web mapping. To that end, I helped run a well-attended Saturday workshop which gave people hands-on practical experience of new web mapping capabilities.

Both sessions were lively and demonstrated an open-minded approach to developments in these areas (notwithstanding the minority of inevitable naysayers!).

Most people attended NACIS to learn something and I’m fairly sure everyone took away something of practical value. I certainly did.

Horizons were widened and many new friends were made. I also got to appreciate that the social side of conferences in the US is as ‘healthy’ (or unhealthy if you prefer) as in the UK and after four days enough was enough. NACIS is, most of all, a community of friends who share a common passion and the conference is their opportunity to get together to celebrate this. It’s like the BCS Symposium but as with most things in the US, it’s super-sized. The organisation was excellent and the experience was enjoyable. A nice touch were the random ‘ribbons’ we were given to add to our delegate badges. Mine said ‘I color outside the lines’ which apart from the obvious spelling error was particularly appropriate…ma ybe it suggests I’m some sor t of radical cartographer? My favorite other ribbon said ‘My ribbon is better than yours’. Next year’s conference is in Portland, Oregon and I’d strongly encourage any UK carto-geeks looking for a good excuse to visit the north-west US next year to consider making NACIS your excuse.

What did I learn about Madison, Wisconsin? Well it’s a crazy college party town and they seem to eat cheese with everything given it’s the dairy state of the US. Trouble is…US cheese is awful stuff. Next time somebody comes to visit me, please bring a decent block of mature cheddar.

Visit the BCS website at www.cartography.org.uk

Kenneth Field @kennethfield Esri, Redlands, CA

...continued from page 17 we have selected Intergraph as a long-term partner in serving our customers’ needs and continually expanding our capabilities and leadership in this field.’

Hexagon Strategy Innovation is fundamental in Hexagon’s long-term strategy for growth and profitability. Through successful R&D and sound knowledge of customer needs, growth is created by unique product offerings that save resources and increase competitiveness for customers. Hexagon invests more than 10 per cent of net sales in research and development and typically renews its product portfolio every 18 months. When identifying technology gaps in the product portfolio, Hexagon compares the cost and benefits of developing the technology in-house with acquiring a company that can provide Hexagon with the technology needed. Aspects such as purchase price, resources, and time to market are factored into that evaluation process. Hexagon applies an aggressive acquisition strategy. Since 2000, Hexagon has implemented some 70 acquisitions and performed about 50 divestments of non-core activities. Acquired businesses add new technologies and know-how to the Hexagon product portfolio, and strengthen the overall offering to customers.

Many Parts, but One Whole Hexagon’s extensive set of products and services work together to provide customers with a constant flow of updated information. With the acquisition of Intergraph, Hexagon’s portfolio now covers all aspects of the design, measurement, and visualisation technology market – from capturing three-dimensional data from ground, air, and space, to processing data and creating, managing, and delivering information via GIS and CAD solutions. By providing complete end-to-end workflows, our customers are able to transform raw data into useful information to help make informed decisions. www.hexagon.com, www.intergraph.com www.leica-geosystems.com, www.erdas.com

Maplines / Winter 2011 • 19

O

From Paris...

verall ICC 2011 was seen to be a success. There were 1430 delegates and a total of 1720 attendees, including exhibitors, exhibition entrants and accompanying persons.

Given the current economic environment, this is a positive outcome. Also a positive sign is that the technical exhibition, while not large by conferences standards, was bigger than has often been the case at ICCs. There were, of course, negative aspects – the lack of seating in the lunch area (and indeed the lack of food on some occasions) and it is probably best not to say any more about the expensive ‘Gala Event’ which raised strong comment from many.

The map exhibition was extensive with a wide range of maps on show, although the majority tend to be topographic or in the tourist/leisure area. The lighting in the exhibition area was variable with the UK allocated area fortunately being one of the better lit spots. There was also an extensive collection of atlases on show and facilities for viewing digital submissions. This latter aspect remains problematic; the ICA need to think about how best digital mapping can be better incorporated into the exhibition. Despite a relatively poor response to our request for contributions, the UK faired well winning in two categories: Ken Field won best Thematic Map for his ‘Beautiful Game’ cartogram (also a BCS award winner) and Harper-Collins along with joint publisher the World Bank won best electronic educational product for their e-atlas of Global Development.

20 • Winter 2011 / Maplines

The General Assembly itself is split into two sections, the first on Sunday before the conference starts and the second on the last day of the event.

The first session focuses on passing on information and various discussions, with all significant decisions voted on in the second session. This split gives National Delegates the opportunity to review material, discuss issues and consider how best to cast their votes.

There were few contentious issues this year. Who should best represent Bulgaria: the newly formed Bulgarian Cartographic Association, or the Union of Surveyors and Land Managers?

Although the USLM are long standing members of ICA and have regularly paid the subscription, there was a strong feeling that they did not adequately represent cartographic interests and were not communicating ICA information effectively within Bulgaria. ICA statutes make it clear that where an appropriate cartographic society exists, they should normally be the national member; only where such a society does not exist or seek to be member should other organisations be accepted. One can see that a parallel could have existed in the past in the UK where the Royal Society was the UK member, not BCS, although in our case this was resolved in a more amicable manner.

ICA finances remain healthy, with reserves in the order of €185,000. The budget for the coming four year period was set at €190,000, representing a small deficit of €5000. Some concerns were raised about setting a deficit budget, but this in part reflects the need to demonstrate to the Swedish tax authorities, where ICA is registered as a charity, that the organisation is indeed meeting its charitable obligations and is not year on year accumulating surplus funds. The

Assembly understood this and approved the budget. The US National Committee proposed enlarging the task of the ICA Publications Committee to include handling the outreach activities of the ICA. The Executive had referred this to the Statutes Committee, who had rejected the proposal, suggesting a slightly modified remit for the Publications Committee, but also the establishment of an Outreach Committee. There had indeed been significant outreach activity in recent years, but the Executive agreed that formation of a specific committee with this remit would enhance this important role of the ICA. The US delegate was satisfied with this outcome and withdrew the motion on the understanding that the Executive would co-ordinate such activities until a formal Outreach Committee could be established at the next General Assembly in 2015.

The Swedish Cartographic Society presented a major substantive motion to encourage the UN to specify an ’International Year of the Map’.

‘The Swedish Cartographic Society support the ideas to be proposed to the United Nations and to ICSU for an International Map Year and the intention is to celebrate the International Map Year in 2015, and also that as many countries as possible organise several Map Days that same year.’

The ICA Strategic Plan for 2011-15 was introduced and will become the operational objective for the new Executive.

All Commissions and Working Groups are expected to submit reports to the General Assembly, and the majority did so. This poster display, which was available for all delegates to see for the duration of the conference, and

Visit the BCS website at www.cartography.org.uk

UKCC Repor t subsequently on the ICA website, was very useful and better organised than previous reporting. The UK did ask for some feedback from Executive in future on the performance of Commissions; each Commission has a designated Executive contact, so it should be possible for such feedback to be provided for the benefit of the General Assembly.

The focus of the second day of the General Assembly is voting. There was a single nomination for President and seven for the seven Vice-Presidential positions, so voting was a formality.

Prof Georg Gartner of Austria was elected President and the V-Ps are: Derek Clark, South Africa; Menno-Jan Kraak, The Netherlands; Sukendra Martha, Indonesia; Paulo Menezes, Brazil; Anne Ruas France; Timothy Trainor USA; Liu Yaolin, China. The position of Secretary General & Treasurer was slightly more problematic. The UK had nominated David Fairbairn for a second term, but due to work commitments, this nomination had to be withdrawn at a late stage. Constitutionally there was no guidance on how to handle such a situation as the period for nominations was closed. It was agreed that the nomination of the outgoing Executive, Prof. Laszlo Zentai of Hungary, be accepted and he was duly elected with unanimous support.

The list of Commissions proposed for the period 2011-15 is too extensive to include here, but all proposals and their terms of reference are available on the ICA website. From a UK perspective, we have chairs of 4 commissions, two of which are new and one which was previously a Working Group: Map Design – Ken Field; Maps & Society – Chris Perkins (2nd term); NeoGeography – Steve Chilton; and Open Source Geospatial Technology – Suchith Anand (formerly Working Group chair). The UK is also well represented by Commission Vicechairs: Digital technologies for cartographic heritage – Alastair Pearson; Generalisation & Multiple Representation – William Mackannes; Geovisualisation – Jason Dykes; History of Cartography – Peter Collier; Use & User Issues – David Forrest.

Although there sometimes seems to be a lack of visibility of cartographic research within the UK, clearly what

does go on is well respected and making a significant contribution on the international stage.

The final vote was the destination for ICC 2015 when the next General Assembly is scheduled to be held. Bids had been received from Brazil (Rio de Janeiro) and the United States (Washington). There is no doubt that the US bid was more professional and far more comprehensive in terms of how the conference would be managed, costs, facilities, etc. The Brazilian bid focused more on the appeal of the destination as somewhere to visit! I had several conversations with people about the best option; most liked the idea of Rio, but thought Washington would be a more focused and better organised event. The UK voted for Washington for a variety of reasons, including cost, but in what I am told was a close call, the majority went for Rio! So, we will be heading for South America again in 2015.

Normally in addition to the two General Assembly sessions, there is a mid-week meeting of the ICA Executive and National Delegates to discuss issues on a less formal basis. Due to the packed Paris programme, such a meeting had not been scheduled. In responding to comments about this omission, the EC agreed that following the formal business, an open session of discussion amongst national member delegates would be held so that issues raised by delegates could be passed to the new EC for action.

Key matters raised included: the need for closer control and interaction with Commissions by EC liaison officers; the wish to see ICA’s activities in Africa given a higher priority; and that ICA seek full membership of ICSU

Visit the BCS website at www.cartography.org.uk

(International Council of Scientific Unions).

Despite the somewhat unwieldy way the General Assembly works, in order for all nations to feel included and to allow time for issues to be gestated prior to voting, it is hard to see how else it could work. The need for simultaneous translation, time for counting votes and allowing all to have their say, does make it seem inefficient, but overall the objectives of the Association are being achieved and ICA does appear to be engaging more widely and effectively with stakeholders, which is the most important outcome.

As the UKCC sets out on its next four year term leading up to the General Assembly in 2015, the BCS are carrying out a review of UKCC operation, membership and financing.

Recent, and sudden, changes in the financial support from the Royal Society resulted in the BCS significantly increasing its financial support to the national delegate. While the increased UK activity in chairing and vice-chairing Commissions is to be welcome, there needs to be clearer guidance on what support is available and what feedback is expected to the UK cartographic community for those supported in these international endeavours. BCS members will have received the National Report as the third issue of The Cartographic Journal of this year.

Compared to previous reports, this is a disappointment due to a lack of response to calls for input. Similarly, while we had an interesting and successful contribution to the map exhibition, there were barely more submission of maps than the space available, despite many more interesting maps being published in the UK in the qualifying period. We aim to address these issues in the review, which will be discussed by UKCC in January and presented to BCS Council in February. If you would like to contribute thoughts on how the UKCC should operate, on how the UK should interact with the international cartographic community, or simply provide some view on ICA activities, please do get in touch.

David Forrest Chair, UK Cartography Committee David.Forrest@ges.gla.ac.uk Maplines / Winter 2011 • 21

Map Curators

BCS Admin Report

Linguistic Geographies in history

Subscriptions 2012 I am afraid that it is that time of the year again when membership subscriptions are due and following the practice of last year renewal forms will be sent individually to those members who pay by credit/debit card or cheque.

T

he Language of Maps colloquium on 23-25 June marked the end of the 15month AHRC-funded ' Linguistic Geographies' research project, the three-way collaborative initiative involving Queen' s University Belfast, Oxford' s Bodleian Library, and King' s College London. The event was held in the Bodleian, and was attended by sixty delegates from nine countries representing numerous differing disciplines. All shared an interest in maps, and how maps work.

The colloquium saw the launch of the project' s web-resource, www.goughmap.org, as well as presentations on some of the project' s findings, particularly the palaeographical and linguistic study conducted by Elizabeth Solopova (Bodleian Library). The two well received keynote lectures were given by the project' s advisory panel members, Jeremy Smith (University of Glasgow) and Peter Barber (British Library), both of whom spoke on topics connected with the Gough Map. Emerging from the colloquium were three themes that connected a number of the papers:

22 • Winter 2011 / Maplines

First we can read maps as ' Maps of language' , for example through the presence of particular vernacular languages used by cartographers on some historic maps, such as on the Gough Map and Fra Mauro' s Mappa Mundi, both of which were maps examined by speakers at the colloquium. There are also modern maps of medieval vernacular languages, such as the Linguistic Atlas of Late-Medieval English that Jeremy Smith used and examined in his keynote paper in relation to the Gough Map' s linguistic geographies; Secondly we can identify ' Language on maps' , evidenced through the presence of extracts on maps taken from literary texts, for example, whether influenced by or derivative of pilgrim or travel accounts, such as those by John Mandeville or Marco Polo, or else deriving from scripture and patristic sources. An interesting issue emerged on this and that concerns how the textual narratives of maps, as told by writing on the map, relate to the graphic/visual contents of maps and globes.

Discussion ensued on whether the textual content was read in a more ' linear' fashion compared with a more fluid reading of a map' s visual content.

Members have the choice of four methods of payment: • Personal cheque payable to The British Cartographic Society (Or for overseas members a Sterling Draft payable in London).

• Visa/Mastercard/Delta credit cards, accepted providing that the standard card and cardholder details are included.

• Standing Order (Forms are available from the Administration Office).

• On-line at www.cartography.org.uk On the Home Page click on JOIN or RENEW NOW and on the page shown select the appropriate membership and then complete the on-line form.

Receipts will be sent out as usual but please note that your current membership card will not normally be replaced unless it has been lost or damaged. Please make a note of your membership number. You will need it to enter the Members’ Area on the Society’s website.

Thirdly there is the ' Language surrounding maps' , or the meta-language of maps and mapping, and the ' linguistic communities' to which certain kinds of maps belonged, whether civic, religious, judicial, or artistic.

Overall, the colloquium papers and discussions helped to take us further in our understanding of the language of maps and how maps communicate, which is enormously beneficial to us in our examination of the Gough Map.

This topic came through in a number of papers, for example those on the legal uses of maps in the 15th and 16th centuries, as well as with those papers that considered the placing of maps and globes, such as the Behaim globe, and the Angliae Figura map of Britain that was the focus of Peter Barber' s keynote lecture.

The ways in which maps reflect(ed) certain shared languages (and practices) within these different communities, indeed perhaps helping to define, construct and communicate them, is worthy of further examination.

The final stage of the colloquium was to visit another famous medieval map, the Hereford Cathedral Mappa Mundi, and so a group of delegates and speakers journeyed across the Cotswolds from Oxford and to spent a relaxed afternoon at Hereford Cathedral, inspecting the map and the new exhibition, as well as having an enjoyable meal in the College Hall, a wonderful setting to finish a very successful colloquium.

Keith Lilley (Queen's University Belfast), Nick Millea (Bodleian Library), Paul Vetch (King's College London)

Visit the BCS website at www.cartography.org.uk

BCS Admin Report New Members The Society has the pleasure of welcoming the following new members who have joined the Society since the publication of the Summer 2011 edition of Maplines.

Corporate Members Millward Davis UK Members Mr D Bennett, Miss E S Charlton, Mrs A Dollimore, Mr N Duggan, Mr P Hancock, Ms C Hrynkiewicz, Miss E Humphries, Mr N M Jordan-Caws, Miss A Kendrick, Mr C S Le Conte, Mr K Lin, Mrs C Mc Intosh, Mr J McDougal, Mr A J P Morey, Mr A Mullineux, Mr M Qaiser, Mrs P Salt, Mr J Seabourn, Mr I R Spencer, Mr C D Thompson.

UK Associate Members Miss A Cunningham, Mr J Harrison, Miss K L Hutchings.

Overseas Members Mr W Ayeni (Nigeria), Mr V O Cole (Nigeria), Mr D Dahal (Hong Kong), Mr F Dickmann (Germany),

Mr T Homewood (France), Ms J Maphanyane (Botswana), Prof J Schiewe (Germany), Mr M Wilburn (USA).

Fellows At its meeting on 7 September 2011, Council was pleased to award Fellowship status to Mr David Cairns, FBCart.S. Administrator’s Plea Not my usual plea about email addresses (that still stands) – but I would ask members (not all but some) to be a little more prompt in renewing membership subscriptions for the coming year. A great deal of time, which I could little afford, and effort/expense was spent in sending out reminders (letter and email) this year.

And finally....

As per last year I shall again be spending Christmas in sunnier climes, my wife and I celebrated 40 years of marital bliss in August and as a little celebratory present (probably for not strangling one another) we shall be on a Caribbean cruise, suitably attired in

black tie and evening dresses.

I am pleased to report that it has been a good year both on the administrative and financial front, in my annual submission to the Charity Commission I will be able to report that the Society achieved a small surplus in its funds during the year, membership figures are up on last year and that there have been no major hiccups. During November/December an even more secure online payment system will be introduced on to the website and I would recommend that members use it especially for renewing memberships.

I would like to thank Council members for the help and support I have received throughout the year, Ken for his font of all knowledge and all those members who have wished me well in the numerous emails and telephone calls I have had this year.

May I wish you all you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Roger Hore BCS Administrator

Principal Sponsor:

BCS members entitled to a 20% discount - Quote ‘BCS20’ when registering Associate Sponsor:

23 - 26 January 2012 QEII Conference Centre, Westminster, London Premium Sponsor:

Geospatially-Enabling Multi-Int for Defence & Intelligence Sponsors:

Enterprise

Maj Gen Jerry Thomas, Assistant Chief of Defence Staff, Intelligence, UK MoD

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Gp Capt Steve Thornber, Officer Commanding, The National Imagery Exploitation Centre (JARIC), UK MoD

Eliza Manningham-Buller, Former Head, MI5

Register today: Call +44 (0) 207 368 9465 Email dgi@wbr.co.uk Visit www.dgieurope.com

Visit the BCS website at www.cartography.org.uk

y to da o t o ter p t gis e u Re sav 700

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Maplines / Winter 2011 • 23

Quiz – HARVEY Maps

A

D

B

C

E

1. Scafell Pike, Lake District 2. Bleaklow Head, Peak District 3. Ben Nevis 4. Snowdon 5. Ingleborough, Yorkshire Dales 6. Helvellyn, Lake District 7. Pen y Fan, Brecon Beacons All maps © HARVEY 2011

Test your knowledge of the mountains and hills of Great Britain with our quiz, which this issue is sponsored

by HARVEY Maps. All you have to do to win this issue’s prize of three HARVEY maps of your choice is to correctly match each of the five contour only maps to the answers given above right. Watch out though as there is a red herring or two in there!

Submit your answers to the Editors using the email address located on page 2. The winner will be instructed to contact the sales team at HARVEY Maps to claim their prize. The closing date for entries is February 14 2012.

Good luck!

24 • Winter 2011 / Maplines

Visit the BCS website at www.cartography.org.uk