WAML: News & Notes - July - September 2013

The 2013 WAML meeting is just a week away! The Planning Committee hopes you're all as excited as we are for the speakers, GIS unconference, Future of WAML discussion, and other activities at the conference.

The meeting will get started with the Early Bird dinner in the Fireside Room at Jackelope's Bar & Grill at Tenaya Lodge from 6:30-8:30pm. You can find a full schedule and more details on the WAML meeting site: waml.org/WAML2013Meeting.html

For those of you who have registered for the field trip, Yosemite National Park is open! The field trip to the park will take place as scheduled with a 9am departure from Tenaya Lodge to the park.

The weather at Tenaya Lodge looks like it will be in the high 60s with lows in the high 30s, so bringing a variety of layers will ensure you stay warm when you need to and cool when you don't. If you plan on exploring Yosemite by foot, sturdy walking shoes or hiking boots are a great idea.

If you haven't yet sent a check for your registration, you can pay with a check at registration at the conference.

If you're still planning how you'll get to Tenaya Lodge, there's the transportation spreadsheet: http://goo.gl/PeKqKY and links to transportation options from the meeting site: http://www.waml.org/WAML2013Meeting.html#trans

Finally, please bring old magazines you don't mind having cut up for our future of WAML session. SkyMall and in-flight magazines will work well! You can drop off these magazines at the Early Bird dinner or registration on Thursday morning.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Katie Lage katie.Lage@colorado.edu or John Ridener jridener@gmail.com.

Thanks,

John

Previous announcements:

The Western Association of Map Libraries conference in Yosemite is coming up soon! http://www.waml.org/WAML2013Meeting.html. If you’re on the fence about attending, here’s some information and pictures from Sunset Magazine to entice you: http://bit.ly/18sz5Dr. Hope to see you there!

I wanted to remind folks of a couple of deadlines:
· The field trip currently has 18 participants. [As of 9/19.] The bus can fit 29 people, so register now and reserve your spot if you know you want to go!
· Tenaya Lodge will release our block of rooms at the end of September. Any reservations received after the cut-off date will be accepted at the group rate on a space available basis only.
· Some of you may have seen a note about a “resort fee” of $15/night in your confirmation email from Tenaya Lodge. This is something they are planning on charging beginning in 2014 and does not apply to our October reservations. Our rate is $149/night plus tax. The tax is about 11%, they said, so that comes to $165.39/night. I’d double-check the total charge on your confirmation email just to be sure; mine added up correctly, so hopefully they all will.

The meeting will be held at Tenaya Lodge in Fish Camp, CA from October 30 - November 2, 2013. We have an exciting schedule of speakers, continuing education, a GIS unconference, and a Saturday field trip into the park.

We’re hoping for a big turnout for this unique and exciting conference in a beautiful setting. Tell your friends—it should be a great meeting!

For questions, please contact John Ridener jridener@gmail.com or Katie Lage Katie.Lage@colorado.edu.

Katie Lage
WAML President 2013-2014

What to bring:
If you're planning on attending the upcoming WAML meeting at Tenaya Lodge, you may be thinking about what to bring with you. Here's a partial list of items you will find useful both at the meeting and while in and around Yosemite:

1. Laptop computer and an account to edit openstreetmap.org
The mapping activity on Friday, November 1 will include time to edit OpenStreetMap live, during the session. If there are 4-5 volunteers who are willing to bring their laptop and register for OSM before the meeting, we can start mapping quickly after coming in from gathering data to map around Tenaya Lodge. Please email me if you're interested in doing this: jridener@gmail.com

2. Magazines you'd likely recycle otherwise
We're hoping to find some inspiring images to help us think creatively during the future of WAML discussion on Friday, November 1. If you have old magazines you don't mind being cut up and used for the session, please bring them to the Early Bird dinner or to the first session you attend at the meeting and hand them off to me. We will recycle any magazines leftover after the meeting.

3. Warm clothes and sturdy shoes
The weather in the Sierra in autumn can be chilly. The average low temperatures are in the low 30s (low 1s for our Canadian attendees), so definitely sweater weather! Cell phone reception is best outside, in the parking lot, so if you plan on using your phone frequently, you'll be sure to stay warm by dressing in layers. Bringing clothing for rain and/or snow will ensure we have great weather during the meeting.

We'll all have a chance to get outside and explore Yosemite National Park and the area around Tenaya Lodge, so sturdy walking shoes would also be a great idea. If you're going on the field trip, there will definitely be opportunities to explore outside.

John Ridener
WAML Past President 2013-2014

A note on the field trip from Kathy Stroud:

I wanted to remind all of you that signed up for the field trip to bring plenty of layers, a hat, gloves, and good walking shoes. Glacier Point is over ‘7,000 in elevation so be prepared for freezing temperatures/cold winds. Even in the summer you can want a jacket to cut the breezes. We’ll be stopped at Mariposa Grove (not as chilly as Glacier point) for about half an hour to tour sequoias. People who want to see the Grizzly Giant at Mariposa can take a brisk walk to see this mighty icon. Since this is the beginning of the trip, you’ll want good walking shoes that keep your feet warm and dry.

Weather

10 day forecast for Fish Camp. Highs in upper 60's/low 70's, lows in the mid 30's with no precipitation.

Other News

From Stanford: the Glen McLaughlin Collection of Maps of California as an Island is now online. Includes nearly 750 maps from 1622 to the mid-1800's.

Help fund this project: J.B. Harley's "The Map as Biography" + the map in question, on one sheet: John Brian Harley wrote this essay for the now-defunct magazine The Map Collectorin 1987, in response to a request to describe his favorite map... The essay discusses how this map, Ordnance Survey Map, Six-inch Sheet Devonshire CIX, SE, Newton Abbot, published in 1904, works as a history of the place, a document in the history of the Ordnance Survey, and as a personal memoir of his time there and the family whose ashes lie buried in the churchyard. The map (detail shown above) will be printed at full size (17 x 22") from a copy at the Library of Congress, in black and white, and the essay will be printed on the back of the map... (Nat Case)

America's Mood Map: An Interactive Guide to the United States of Attitude: West Virginia is the most neurotic state, Utah is the most agreeable and the folks of Wisconsin are the country's most extroverted, a new study says. Take TIME's test to find out which state most suits you...

A Map of Internet Freedom Around the World: Freedom House's Global Assessment of Internet and Digital Media comes out once a year, and the 2013 edition shows that there's still a lot of censored, un-free internet out there. (Gizmodo)

How to Create Placemarks and Tours in Google Earth and How to Find Google Earth Files Without Opening Google Earth and Seven Science Lessons that Utilize Google Earth (all from Free Technology for Teachers)

The 6 Best Google Maps Games: of course, GeoGuessr is #1.

Quick directions in Google maps: Need to know how to get from point A to point B and you don't want to faff around with Google maps? Now you don't have to. In the normal search box, just type in <place A> to <place B> and Google will pull up a directions card for you, and you can then click it that to expand the driving directions, or click on the map to go to the usual map directions.

These simulators are REALLY COOL! 5 Tools To Take An Auto-Guided Google Street View Tour: Hitting the road for a scenic drive can be super relaxing. Unfortunately, it’s neither a cheap, nor an environmentally friendly pastime, which both traffic and weather can utterly ruin. With Google Street View you can comfortably explore the world from your desk. Google Maps is a nifty navigation tool and all the information embedded in the maps make it a great travel guide, too. Now you can even set Street View on auto-pilot and let it take you on the world’s most scenic drives. (makeuseof)

Here's a tongue in cheek introduction to maps (video in French with English subtitles):MAP vost. Let me introduce you to a new bio-optical knowledge recording and dissemination system, responding to the trade name : MAP. "Map" is an unprecedented technological revolution...

Apple Buys 2 Mapping Companies

Tattoo You: 11 Map Tattoos That Pay Tribute to Cities and Their Systems(Gizmodo) and 11 Amazing Librarian Tattoos (Mental Floss).

Drawings of sea monsters on early maps:Whimsical Sea Monsters (British Library). See also: Here Be Dragons: The Evolution of Sea Monsters on Medieval Maps (livescience) and book ordering info (Amazon).

Ten Beautiful Medieval Maps (MEDIEVALISTS.NET)

Rarely Seen Maps From San Francisco's Quirkiest Hidden Library (Wired's MapLab)

Just in time for the holidays: available at the Smithsonian Store is a One-of-a-Kind Map Lady Jewelry Set made from disarded atlases (on sale for $29.99). Or choose from other map related items.

Future WAML Meetings:

Yosemite, October 30 - November 3, 2013
WAML Meetings Web Page

Conferences, Classes & Exhibitions

November 4-8, 2013 – Berkeley, California Julie Sweetkind-Singer will present a course History of Cartography/Maps at the California Rare Book School. This course is designed to provide a general overview of the history of maps in the western world as well as their use in modern day teaching and research. Topics will include the production and use of maps; the rise of the map trade in Europe and America; the role of maps as cultural and social objects; the wide variety and type of maps produced (nautical charts, city views and plans, topographic, land ownership, globes, celestial charts, etc.); the map trade; conservation issues; and the role of museums and libraries as stewards of the content.
August 17, 2013 - January 6, 2014 - San Marino, California
A first-of-its-kind exhibition documenting the life of the Franciscan missionary who founded California’s mission system and the missions’ impact on California Indians and culture is at the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, 1151 Oxford Road. The exhibition, Junípero Serra and the Legacies of the California Missions, is unprecedented in its examination of the spiritual and intellectual influences on Junípero Serra’s life that led to his founding of the mission system in California; the transition for thousands of Indians from village to mission life and their responses to it; romantic notions of California born amid myrid myths of mission life; and responses of contemporary Indians, in art and recorded interviews, to the experience. The exhibition features religious art, diaries and Bibles, letters, maps and reliquaries that provide the context for Serra’s early years as a Franciscan priest, his deployment to Mexico as missionary and agent of the Spanish Inquisition, and the work that occupied his final years: establishing the first nine of 21 Spanish missions in Alta California.

Cartography - Calendar of Meetings and Events

Cataloging News

The report this issue by Paige Andrew is lengthy and is therefore available on a separate page.

Canadian News

No report.

In July, Wired magazine introduced a new mapping blog called MapLab and it has been very active. Check out recent entries, such as Brilliant Maps Reveal Age of the World's Buildings and 1885 Map Reveals Vice in San Francisco's Chinatown and Racism at City Hall.
A Before and After Look at America's Great Cities: Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Washington, New York, San Francisco.The historical map viewable in the spyglass above comes from the David Rumsey Map Collection. We recently asked David Rumsey, a map expert who has been collecting maps since the 1980s, to describe the nature of the map to us. His personal map collection currently contains more than 150,000 maps and is one of the largest private collections in the United States.
(Smithsonian Magazine)

Here's a site devoted to Tokyo (in Japanese), as described by The Beauty in Japan's Historical Maps

Here's one for the trainspotters who can't get outside: Live Real-Time Map of Amtrak Trains. Amtrak has today launched a real-time map of its more than 300 daily trains. The Amtrak Track a Train map shows the live position of all the network's trains. (Google Maps Mania)

August 19, 2013 - 5,359 New Maps Added

5,359

new maps and images have been added to the David Rumsey Map Collection, bringing the online collection to 42,725 maps and related images. Highlights in this addition are Rizzi Zannoni's 1808 Atlante geografico del regno di Napoli; a very early geography game from France, Le Jeu du Monde of 1645; several World Atlases by Stieler; 60 Maritime Charts from the United States Exploring Expedition, 1850; over 900 topographical and geological maps from the 19th and 20th century published by the Ordnance Survey of Great Briton; 10 maritime charts from various parts of the world, 1807 - 1882; 7 County and City Atlases, 1872 - 1913; 6 manuscript maps of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad in the U.S. Southwest, 1882; Russell's report and map of ancient Lake Lahontan in Nevada; the Codazzi and Paz Atlas of Colombia, 1889; a rare GermanPhysical Atlas of the Atlantic Ocean, 1922; the 1906 and 1915 editions of the Atlas of Canada; Baist's 1921 real estate Atlas of Los Angeles; Paullin and Wright's 1932 Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States; transportation traffic maps of California from 1934; a rare Thomas Brothers Atlas of California, 1938; Key transit system aerial photos of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, California, 1948; and the 1988 U.S.G.S Atlas of Oblique Maps. All titles may be found by clicking on the View links or images below. Or click here to view all 5,359 new maps and images.