Moscow Presenters & Presentations

Reflections on hosting a GIS Bootcamp

I launched a library-led GIS bootcamp inspired by GIS institutes at well established R1 Institutions, but adapted for our institution’s scale and resources. The two-day, in-person event targeted researchers with little to no prior experience and introduced foundational GIS knowledge, ethical data practices, and hands-on practice. The bootcamp was a collaborative effort involving campus and library staff, who shared complementary research tools and resources. This presentation shares lessons from designing and hosting a library-led GIS Bootcamp for librarians interested in launching similar initiatives.

Using Geographic Visualizations to Enrich Oral History Recordings

This presentation will detail my experience contributing to the Taylor Wilderness Research Station Archive for University of Idaho as the Digital Initiatives Librarian. Because the physical space of the station is only accessible through hiking or light aircraft, I wanted to give visitors to the digital collection an added layer of geographic context to the thousands of scientific reports, internal documents, photographs and oral history recordings that make up the collection.

Using Google Earth Studio and determining geographic data from the specific sites mentioned in the recordings by visiting professors, students and superintendents at the station, I designed visualizations which followed interviewees through their stories, conveying both geographic and chronological context. Throughout the process, I identified best practices for pacing and camera movement to support viewer comprehension and narrative clarity.

The presentation will outline the technical and conceptual workflow behind this project and conclude by expanding on this experience with non-proprietary tools and varying programmatic approaches for integrating spatial information into oral history and archival collections.

Visualizations: https://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/taylor-archive/geo-animation.html

David Hodnefield

President, Historical Information Gatherers (HIG)

Follow up on the Sanborn Copyright Lawsuit

In 2019 the Sanborn Library LLC sued another data provider for copyright infringement of Sanborn maps.  The defendant countersued and the case slowly wound its way through the court system.  This is a follow up to last year’s presentation where the conclusion of the case will be presented.

When More is More: A Community-Centered Approach to Enriching a Printed Map

In service to its land-grant institution, the University of Idaho centers the value of outreach and community partnerships. A recent collaborative project brought together the University Library’s Special Collections and Archives department and a local preservation group to enhance an existing historic sites map. This presentation will offer attendees a chance to learn about building trust with external partners, developing donor interest, creating student learning opportunities, and ultimately building a successful digital photo map.

Lord Elector Karl III. Philipp of the Rhine Palatine’s “Atlas Major” from 1719-21: a study in dating late seventeenth and eighteenth century “Map Sellers Atlases.”

In the corpus of early modern atlases there is the so-called “Sammelband,” “Composite Atlas,” or “Atlas factice,” a bound group of apparently random maps. These atlases were the product of an ever-expanding market for loose maps that took root in the second half of the 17th Century. Dating these atlases composed of maps published by a random group of map publishers has always been a conundrum for catalogers, a situation that has left numerous cataloging entries for late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century atlases with a span of dates that cover as much or more than one hundred years. Hence lessening their value as a window into the cartographic knowledge of a given historic timeframe. Though there are many of this form of atlas that can never be dated with a sense of accuracy, there is however one subset, that due to the ownership history of the printing plates of the maps, the form of their binding, and various other clues, can be dated with a relative degree of accuracy. This subset, the “Map Sellers Atlas,” will be discussed in this presentation.

The Joy of Cooking: A Compilation of Reliable Recipes for Remedial Map Series Recataloging and Repair Work, with Casual Culinary Chat

Map series cataloging records matter because they provide resource discovery for large data sets, sometimes thousands of quadrangle maps packed like sardines. That warrants going the extra mile when map series are described and analyzed, even if that is bread & butter stuff. Historically, these data sets have often been undervalued and undercataloged. That has long been a hot potato, hidden in the vast reaches of online catalogs. Time constraints meant that map catalogers were in a pickle and had to be content with providing rudimentary descriptions. How can we up our game, make lemonade out of lemons? Use your noodles! Recent changes, for example the rollout of Genre/Form Headings for Cartographic Resources, and the introduction of new data requirements that RDA instituted, have made it easier to argue for richer descriptions and better analysis. That has helped to justify repair work. Soup up! Cut the mustard!
In RDA and Cartographic Resources (Chicago, 2015) Paige G. Andrew, Susan M. Moore and Mary Larsgaard, cool as a cucumber, effectively utilized map series records to document the evolution of map cataloging rules and practices. The authors also provided map series examples to scope and illustrate how RDA might affect the efforts of metadata professionals who work with cartographic resources. A piece of cake! As easy as pie.
At Berkeley digitization projects often create opportunities to reappraise map series as part of recataloging efforts. One focus has been to describe variation within these large data sets, another one to add more comprehensive source map data notes. That’s not just meat & potatoes stuff! It also has meant linking related map series to other map series records, by using the Linking Entry Fields (MARC 760 to 787). Another common thread has been to provide adequate name authority control, to record more of the corporate bodies that appear on these maps, and to describe their specific roles in the creation, production, publication and distribution of map series (MARC 264). Proof is in the pudding!
Four examples showcase some of the results, but these Berkeley examples also underline how historical choices, long-established collection practices and local description standards, constrain the repair work that map metadata professionals can perform. Don’t go bananas. Go for the low-hanging fruit. A strong dose of pragmatism is essential when past choices make it impractical to do what would have been right. Remedial map series cataloging and repair work add value and have clear benefits. Bring home the bacon!

(Moderately) Extreme Aerial Photo Collection Makeover

The historical aerial photo collection at UC Riverside Library needed upgrades to storage, digital availability, and findability. In a project that launched in Summer 2024, colleagues from several library departments have been flattening and rehousing photos, scanning those lacking a digital presence, and creating metadata for the newly scanned flights. Meanwhile, web apps that contain aerial photo centerpoints are being created to facilitate exploring the collection.

Analyzing the Use of Sanborn Maps in Graduate Theses and Dissertations in the Digital Era

Graduate theses and dissertations can be a valuable corpus for exploring the use of map and geospatial information resources beyond what is found in traditionally published scholarship. In this presentation, I will discuss preliminary results of a bibliometric analysis of the use of Sanborn maps in graduate theses and dissertations dating back to 2001, when ProQuest first released their Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867-1970 product. Keyword searching in the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global and EBSCO Open Dissertations databases reveals more than 1,000 full text theses and dissertations that appear to reference the use of Sanborn maps in some way. Various attributes of these documents, including publication date, institution, department, degree type, and source of Sanborn maps (where possible) are recorded to identify trends in the use of these historical cartographic resources in graduate research. This work will be contextualized by considering its potential implications for informing library outreach and education, assessing the value of digitized map collections, and underscoring concerns about ephemeral geodata today.

Charting Our Course: A Tour Through WAML’s History

This presentation provides a visual journey through the history of WAML. Utilizing an interactive virtual timeline, we trace the association’s origins, milestones, leadership changes, and key events from its founding to the present day. This format enables viewers to follow the association’s development in an accessible and chronological manner, highlighting significant events such as the first annual conference, field trips, and other key milestones.

The timeline presentation is designed to foster a deeper appreciation for the contributions of founding members, past presidents, and long-standing supporters whose efforts have shaped the organization. We also hope that members will share stories and help us fill in the gaps. By creating this digital exhibit, we aim to make it both informative and interactive, inviting members, old and new, to explore the legacy and continuing evolution of our community.

GitHub for Catalogers

Have a mountain of cataloging problems or errors that need to be fixed? Not sure how to keep track? In this lightning talk, Laura will show how the DRMC has implemented GitHub issue tracking and templates to document, track, and maintain workflows that are easy to implement across multiple staff members and departments.

MAGIRT Regional Coordinators

Online Guide to U.S. Map Collections

Brainstorming the Future of the Online Guide to US Map Collections

Following the unexpected loss of the Online Guide to U.S. Map Collections, join us at this workshop to brainstorm the best path forward.

“Maps I’m Mad At”: Performing an Audit of UGA’s Map Collection

For the last two years, the Map & Government Information Library (MAGIL) at the University of Georgia has undertaken a massive project that affects every corner of its map collection: an “audit” of the map drawers. What began as a pilot in Spring 2023 to restore order and enhance access to the Georgia maps has expanded to encompass almost every call number range. Since then, the audit has evolved into a highly adaptable, customizable project that has greatly improved life in MAGIL from both a staff and user perspective, while also preparing us for the future, through impending reorganization and beyond.

Critical cartographic literacy strategies: Bringing social justice into your teaching

Are you ready to help your students learn to question the power dynamics within maps and mapping? We think it is important for map and GIS librarians to approach instruction with critical practices. In the context of cartographic literacy, we should foster critical consciousness with maps while approaching students with care in a participatory teaching environment.

This session will introduce the topic of critical pedagogy and how it applies to teaching with maps. Strategies and tips for incorporating critical prompts and practices will be presented. During the session, participants will have time to work with their own materials or materials from a sample workshop / lesson to practice the suggested strategies and tips.

Please bring a lesson plan, slide deck, worksheet, or other teaching material that you can workshop during this time or use one of our sample lesson plans. These critical teaching practices can be applied to a variety of topics and materials.

“Not Only What, But Where”: Bringing a 1950s Land Cover Collection into the Digital Era

In the early 1950s, a group of researchers at UMass Amherst launched an ambitious project to document the land cover across the state of Massachusetts. The team obtained over 4,500 black-and-white aerial photos that had just been commissioned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and they began the painstaking work of tracing land cover polygons onto the photos, focusing on forests, open lands, and wetlands. The data was then transferred onto 7.5-minute U.S. Geological Survey topo quads, and one copy of each of quad was colored in by hand to allow the researchers to calculate the total acreage of each land cover type. As one report declared, “These maps tell not only *what*, but *where* the land types are in the state” – a novelty for the pre-GIS era!

Flash forward to 2018, when the collection was rediscovered in the UMass Amherst Libraries’ map room, and we launched our own ambitious project to digitize the photos and maps and make them publicly available. In this talk, I’ll share about the work we’ve done so far, including experiments with machine-learning approaches and the lessons we learned along the way. To date, we have georeferenced the entire aerial photo collection and are now setting out to digitize the land cover polygons and make them available to researchers.

Exploring the Use of Maps in Children’s Literature Exhibitions

The Fresno State Library curates a yearly open house as outreach, highlighting collections, services, and spaces available to our community. The open and informal nature leaves room for building new or strengthening established relationships across departments. Curating an informal exhibit using material from our respective collections (Maps and the Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children’s Literature) allowed us to engage with both in unexpected ways. The student and faculty engagement also created a playful environment for reminiscing on favorite books from childhood, the apparent novelty of physical maps in a digital age, and nourished dialog about senses of place and belonging in both the physical world as well as the literary one. What started as an excuse for two friends to collaborate continues to open the door for future exhibitions, research, and outreach.

“Come to dwell among us”: Maps, Monsters, and a First Year Literature Course

Beginning from a goal to increase class instruction utilizing the Library’s map collection, in Fall 2024 a collaborative partnership with a first year literature course studying the intersection of monsters and foreignness began. Students enrolled in the literature course were given hands-on time with maps from the 15th through 17th centuries and learned how to adapt techniques they were learning for thinking about and critiquing literature to cartographic materials. The course culminated in the creation of a Monster Compendium, featuring the creatures students encountered in their readings and on the maps. This presentation will share lessons learned from two semesters of the course, a short list of maps that worked in the class, and a view of the students’ Monster Compendium.

An introduction to the Place Marketing Collection at Michigan State University Libraries

The MSU Libraries Place Marketing Collection was established in 2018 by the Maps & Geospatial Services unit of Michigan State University Libraries. The collection now includes over 1,500 items, largely consisting of freely distributed promotional tourist brochures produced by nonprofit organizations and government agencies, many of which are (or include) maps. This presentation will position these ephemeral publications as cultural artifacts that are worthwhile additions to our research collection. I will begin with an overview of the collection’s scope and development, and conclude with a selection of contemporary maps that illustrate some topical themes that have emerged during the collection’s first seven years.