NEWSLETTER April 2008
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NEWSLETTER April 2008 Registered Charity No. 326285 CONTENTS Chair’s message 1 FROM THE CHAIR 2008 Summer School 4 Reports 6 I usually like to detail for you the activities that I have undertaken on Obituary 12 your behalf as SoC Chair since the last Newsletter. As you will see News 14 from the next three items I have failed spectacularly in this matter Events 16 - predominantly because of my op and rehab time. End Note 19 I received a request to be on the AGI Conference Organising Team Application forms - for this year, as they wanted “someone who is familiar and active Wallis Award 20 in the neo-geo arena actively engaged in the working group that Summer School Bursary 21 shapes it.” Unfortunately, I had to turn it down as I couldn’t make the first meeting in November as I was in hospital. I see from the Illustrator Workshop 22 website (http://www.agi.org.uk/) that Sean Phelan is the keynote speaker. The pitch of the conference - AGI GeoCommunity ‘08 “Shaping a Changing World” - is certainly changing, and it would NEWSLETTER be interesting to hear his presentation. Sean is the founder of Mul- CONTRIBUTIONS timap, which was purchased by Microsoft in December 2007. Welcome to the April There was also an offer to represent SoC on the UKGeoForum issue of the SoC Newsletter. - which is “a group of societies and associations that represent the The Newsletter is core interests that encompass geography, mapping and the ge- published three times a ospatial information handling industry” - http://www.ukgeoforum. year and designed for dig- org.uk/. I accepted, as it is something we as a society have been ital distribution via the So- asking about for a while now. I couldn’t make my first meeting due ciety’s website. Hard copy to a hospital consultant’s appointment, but hope to do better next versions of the Newsletter time. are available on request. The third thing was an invitation to speak at the HEA/GEES “Sup- Contributions to the Newslet- porting the Supporters II” conference at Cheltenham. I was in- ter are welcomed from all volved in the conference planning - a long tele-conference call. our readers. Please email all copy and photographs to: The actual conference clashed with something - but David Sherren attended, ran a workshop and publicised SoC there. [email protected] 1 SoC Newsletter April 2008 SoC Newsletter April 2008 I fielded a request from Tom Steinberg (of mysociety.org) for suppli- Finally, it is all change on the work front. I am just now supervising ers of base-mapping for their time-travel mapping work. I provided the final dispersal of the remaining contents of the Middlesex Uni- contacts for four mainstream commercial data suppliers, and also versity map library; a sad end to a once notable map collection. It some “open” data sources. They ended up using OpenStreetMap was forced on us as Geography is no longer taught at undergradu- data and produced a great series of interactive maps. See: http:// ate level, and because we are about to move to another campus www.mysociety.org/2007/more-travel-maps/, within the university, where space is at even more of a premium. I just love looking at maps, and could have given a home to much An approach was received from UKHO for them to use some of this material. I had to make do with a complete set of 7th Series comments of mine in one of their publications. I agreed to my OS maps - which I intend to offer in due course (when they have all comments on CARTO-SOC on “cartographic specialisations and gone out of copyright in the next couple of years) as a web serv- moving jobs” being used in an Admiralty publication ECDIS Today ice, similar to the New Popular Edition that Richard Fairhurst and - provided credit is given to SoC. I have not seen the result yet, but colleagues provide at: http://www.npemap.org.uk/. Anyone who Contact Steve was told that a copy would be sent. wants to cooperate with me on this venture is welcome to contact by email at:- me. The university library is also disposing of large amounts of [email protected] I spent some time helping Alex Kent with the pulling together of book stock. I couldn’t let some of these go either. So, I am now his first SoC Bulletin. It has been a while coming off the press - the proud possessor of : MacEachren and Taylor’s “Visualization in partly due to the intricacies of threeway communication between modern cartography”, and the OS book “History of the Re-triangu- Alex, Gary Haley (production editor supreme) and myself. Today lation of GB 1935-1962”, among several others. Obviously it was the copy arrived in the post and mighty fine it looks too, with many remiss of me not to have had the first tome, and I have to say that colour illustrations, and some interesting articles - including an ex- the 395 pages of the latter looks like a truly riveting read. They are cellent one on “Maps for the colour-vision impaired” by Bernhard currently on the floor in the office, as I can’t yet face explaining this Jenny and Nathaniel Vaughn Kelso. By coincidence today I saw one to Moira if I take them all home. a blog reference to Nathaniel Vaughn Kelso’s work, which I feel is an outstanding example of how newspapers (in this case the Middlesex University is going through yet another re-structuring, to Washington Post) CAN use cartography to effectively complement coincide with bringing departments together. Someone has decid- their news and articles. Take a look at: http://vector1media.com/ ed that centralised services are the only way. So I am being forced vectorone/?p=365. Incidentally, one thing I have enjoyed is the (with a proverbial kick and a scream) into a manager’s job in the freedom to write stuff for publication now that I am NOT the editor. Centre for Learning and Quality Enhancement. This means even less chance to do any cartography as it will involve supporting the The Society is always mindful of a need to cooperate with oth- Virtual Learning Environment (Blackboard - if you are interested). ers in our realm. This applies across the board (being involved in However, I am negotiating at present to try to keep cartography UKGeoForum) and in particular with cooperation with our sister in my job description, so that hopefully I can offer an on-demand society - The British Cartographic Society. To this end I met with service to the research groupings that have a latent demand. In Mary Spence (BCS President) recently to discuss inter-society co- light of this it was quite pleasing that one of the last real map- operation, particularly with regard to future conferences. This has ping jobs I completed was to submit a geomorphological map of resulted in a meeting being set up for later this month between a small region in Southern Spain to the Journal of Maps. This had myself, Mike Shand and Heather Browning (all from SoC), and been bubbling under with a research colleague for a while and was Mary Spence, Peter Jones and Fiona Cocks(representing BCS), nice to see come to fruition, and was an interesting insight into how to try to coordinate our dates and venues, and to investigate joint this “reverse publishing” model works. conference ideas. On the same day as this meeting I was invited to attend the launch of Nick Millea’s book on the Gough Map at Finally, thanks to Rosie Duncan for superbly bringing this newslet- Quaritch Rare Books, Piccadilly. There is a short report on that oc- ter together on your behalf. casion elsewhere in this Newsletter. Steve Chilton SoC Chair Steve Chilton 2 3 SoC Newsletter April 2008 SoC Newsletter April 2008 ABERDEEN 2008 have great variety, in- Summer School cluding mapping and 2008 Society of Cartographers 1 – 4 September, 2008 map-related subjects 44th Annual Summer School such as “Aberdeen, University of Aberdeen past, present and fu- ture”, the beaches and Aberdeen The 44th Annual Summer School of the Society of Cartographers coastlines, 3D mapping, will take place on 1 - 4 September, in the ancient University of Ab- new panoramas of the erdeen. The city (oil capital of Europe), its harbour, coastline and Cairngorms, history and surrounding region, have much to offer to those who may wish to archaeology, geovisualisation in geology, the environment, ses- linger after the event. College Tower sions including exciting new ventures in cartography and GIS, as well as Members’ Session, Demonstrations and Workshops and Map exhibition. Excursions are also being arranged, to include an oil company, The Macaulay Institute for Land Use Research, and a guided local walk. Future Summer School Venues Dates for your diary Our host is the School of Geoscience and the main venue is St Mary’s Building, which houses Geography, Planning and Archae- 2008 ology. Lunches will be provided in the Hub Centre, just opposite, Aberdeen and accommoda- 1- 4 September tion in new facilities The website (http://www.abdn.ac.uk/cartographers08/) will soon be at Hillhead Halls, a expanded to include more details of the programme, venue, etc. 2009 short walk through If you would like to offer a presentation (in the main programme Venue to be or Members’ Session), provide exhibits or give demonstrations of decided software, etc., please contact Mike Wood ([email protected]). 2010 Manchester Seaton Park and close to the River Don gorge Would you like to and the 17th century Brig o’ Balgownie.