Founded with the Washington D.C. Chapter of Special Libraries Association (SLA) in 1941, the Geography and Map Section of the Social Science Division, met in Boston.  It was the 106th Annual Conference for SLA and a time for rebuilding for the Geography and Map Section.  A new chair of the Section, Mark Johnson (former map librarian with the CIA), is taking a close look at what the Section can do for the map library and GIS community.  He can be reached at [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>

Long-time member and former chair of the SLA Geography & Map Division (1991), David McQuillan ([log in to unmask]), organized several activities during the conference in Boston.  Arrangements were made to have a discount at the "Mapparium" at the Mary Baker Eddy Library by showing your SLA Conference badge.  This is a stained glass globe that one walks through.  It is "frozen" in time to the world of 1935.  It is next to the offices of the Christian Science Monitor.  The IFLA Geography and Map Library Section had a "hard hat" tour in 2001 during the renovations of the globe.  Visits were also made to the Boston Public Library (BPL), Map Collection.  Dr. Ronald Grimm, curator, offered a tour of the map collection and an exhibit from the American Revolution.  Another day, Alice Hudson, retired New York Public Library map curator, was at BPL working on an exhibit of women cartographers, drawn from the BPL map collection.  Dr. Grimm offered a more comprehensive tour of the "We Are One" mapping exhibit on Tuesday, June 16 for Section members.  Also attending was Michael Noga from MIT Libraries.

There were several map related exhibitors in the Expo this year.  They included American Geoscience Institute; Geographic Research, Inc.;  GeoScience World; Northeast Document Conservation Center; SimplyMap; and others with a map or geographic component.

The SLA Cataloging Committee met at an informal gathering in the Expo area.  Dorothy McGary and David McQuillan, members of the Committee with a joint interest in map cataloging, discussed a possible map cataloging workshop at the 2016 IFLA-Columbus, Ohio meeting.  There are many details that will have to be worked out before this can happen, sponsorship, location, and financing being the most important.

Next year is the 75th Anniversary of the founding of the first group of professional map librarians.  SLA meets in Philadelphia, June 12 - 14, 2016.  We would love to hear any ideas for the program next year.