September 23-26, 2015
Esri World Headquarters
Redlands, CA
Wednesday, September 23
WAML Executive Board Meeting 1-3pm (Building Q, Briefing Room)

ESRI WORKSHOP 3-7pm (Holistic Test Lab, Building M1N)
Building and Sharing Historical Map Collections Online
Rich founts of information often sit untapped in unexploited library map drawers, inaccessible stocks of map publishers, under-utilized archives in museums, and even unexplored private collections. The maps in these collections could prove invaluable in providing views into the past, and these situations run counter to the common expectation that everything of value, or required for reference and research, best serves the needs of the mapping community by being available through the Internet. The web offers the best opportunity for archiving and sharing these collections with wider audiences for a number of reasons. A good example is the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Historical Topographic Map Explorer—a web application (app) that provides users access to almost 180,000 scanned maps through a user interface that provides easy exploration, engaging visual comparison, and speedy download of maps in the collection. Using this web app as an example, this workshop takes you step-by-step through a solution for converting map collections to a format that can be shared online. You’ll start with scanning, georeferencing, and building metadata for the maps. You’ll learn how the map images are converted from raster data to image services that can be viewed on the web. Finally, you’ll learn how to create the web maps and use them in a web app that provides the user interface and functionality in a useful and engaging online map explorer app.Aileen Buckley, Esri Cartographer Dr. Aileen Buckley is a Professional Cartographer and has been making maps for over 30 years. Her PhD is from Oregon State University, and she was on the faculty at University of Oregon. Dr. Buckley has published and lectured widely on topics relating to cartography and GIS. She is an author of the “Atlas of Oregon” (2001) and the sixth and seventh editions of “Map Use” (2009 and 2012). She publishes regularly in Esri’s ArcWatch and ArcUser. She is a past president of the Cartography and Geographic Information Society. She is currently on the U.S. National Committee to the International Cartographic Association and is a U.S. Delegate to the ICA.
Early-bird dinner
Thursday, September 24
Speakers & presentations
- 9:00 – 9:15 AM Welcome and introductions
- 9:15 – 10:00 AM ”Building and Sharing Historical Map Collections Online” (a follow-up to the workshop) — Aileen Buckley, Esri
- 10:00 – 10:30 AM “Esri Spatial Data Library: A Solution to a Number of Complex Questions” — Mac King, Esri
- 10:30 – 10:45 AM Break
- 10:45 – 11:30 AM “California Statewide Map Digitization Meeting – Findings and Proposals” — Patrick Newell, CSU Fresno
- 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM Lunch Esri Café or on your own
- 12:30 – 1:00 PM Optional Tour of Esri Library — Patty Turner & Colleen Conner, Esri
- 1:00 – 1:30 PM “If you can’t find it, you can’t use it” — Product Manager Esri Geoportal Server, Esri
Metadata is often seen as cumbersome, an after-thought. In this presentation we will discuss the capabilities of ArcGIS to describe data, services, tools, with metadata and how this can then in turn be used for data discovery within a single organization as well as across multiple collaborating organizations. - 1:30 – 2:00 PM (ArcGIS Open Data) — Andrew Stauffer, Esri
- 2:00 – 2:45 PM “A Taste of GIS: Using Open Data and ArcGIS.com in a Freshman Environmental Studies Course” — Andrew Nicholson, U. Toronto
- 2:45 – 3:00 PM Break
- 3:00 – 3:45 PM “The Challenges and Discoveries of Processing Maps in Railway Collections: The AT&SF Railway Company Land Records in UTA Libraries Special Collections” — Leslie Wagner, UT Arlington
- 3:45 – 4:15 PM “Scissors and Paste, or, Everything I need to update my fire insurance maps I learned in kindergarten” — Dave Hodnefield, Historical Information Gatherers
- 4:15 – 4:30 PM Lightning Talks (anyone)
- 4:30 – 5:00 PM Optional Tour of Esri Library — Patty Turner & Colleen Conner, Esri
- 6:30pm — Banquet at Romano’s Restaurant in downtown Redlands
Friday, September 25
Speakers & presentations
- 9:00 – 9:45 AM (ArcGIS Demo) — Brendan O’Neill, Esri
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Esri Headquarters. Photo by Andrew Wiseman/flickr 9:45 – 10:30 AM “Creating and Using Spatial Bibliographies in ArcGIS” — Charlie Frye, Chief Cartographer, Esri
How do historians qualify what they know about a place at a given point of history? Narrative descriptions are one good technique; they work well in lieu of having one or more maps. When a historian has a collection of maps to help describe a place, a spatial bibliography is a useful way to organize and explore the collection to better understand it’s value in describing places. This presentation will use a spatial bibliography for colonial America, with nearly 150 source documents, to illustrate the opportunities ArcGIS offers historians to better understand places in history. - 10:30 – 10:45 AM Break
- 10:45 – 11:30 AM “Generating Vector Features from Scanned Historical Maps Using Image Enhancement and Remote Sensing Techniques in a GIS” — Bruce Godfrey, U. Idaho
- 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM Lunch
- 12:30 – 1:00 PM Optional Tour of Esri Library — Patty Turner & Colleen Conner, Esri
- 1:00 – 1:45 “Geospatial Data Discovery at Stanford” — Stacey Maples, Stanford
- 1:45 – 2:15 (Living Atlas of World) — TBD, Esri
- 2:15 – 2:45 PM Lightning Talks (anyone)
- 2:45 – 3:00 PM Break
- 3:00 – 4:00 PM WAML Business Meeting
- 4:00 – 4:30 PM WAML Sounding Board
Saturday, September 26
Field Trip 9:30 — 12:30
- A.K. Smiley Library http://www.akspl.org/ hosted bythe Library Director, Don McCue. He was the Head Archivist for 26 years before he became Director, and he is a Civil War historian. He is extremely interesting and a good speaker. The library is nearby and it is a beautiful California Mission style building, with a rich history. The Heritage Room in the library is full of wonderful old California maps and the Archivist, Nathan Gonzales is very interesting and is an expert in Southern California Indians and local Redland history.
- Across from the library is the Lincoln Memorial Shrine http://www.lincolnshrine.org/ Don McCue will also give the tour.
- NO cost for the guided tours, but WAML suggests making a donation to Library or Shrine while on the tour.