forwarded from a British librarianship list ... -------- Original Message -------- Subject: CFP: Working digitally with historical maps (AAG/New York Public Library, Feb 2012) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2011 14:40:46 +0200 From: Humphrey Southall <[log in to unmask]> Reply-To: A forum for issues related to map & spatial data librarianship <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] CALL FOR PAPERS: WORKING DIGITALLY WITH HISTORICAL MAPS A One-Day Workshop at the New York Public Library, to be held as part of the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, February 2012 ======================================================================== The last twenty years have seen both extensive work by map librarians to computerise their collections of historic maps AND the development of historical GIS as a distinct sub-discipline, reconstructing past landscapes, both cultural and physical, from historical sources. However, there has been surprisingly little interaction between map library digitisation projects and researchers in historical GIS. This workshop will bring together map librarians digitising their collections with academic researchers using historical maps as sources for GIS systems and historical database. We are interested in most novel uses of historical mapping in a digital environment, and it is easier to say what we are not interested in: simply scanning old maps to create digital images, without geo-referencing or new approaches to metadata; and feature extraction for historical GIS by manual tracing of lines on old maps. That said, possible topics include: == Geo-spatial search interfaces to historical maps collections, enabling users to find maps based on WHERE they are interested in, rather than via sheet titles or the name of the publisher. == Geo-referencing of or feature extraction from historical maps using either crowd-sourcing or automation. "Feature extraction" includes creating historical gazetteers by extracting place-names from old maps. == Applying image processing techniques to the analysis of historical map images. == Digitally combining historical maps and plans with modern geospatial data to reconstruct past landscapes and events. The workshop will form part of the annual meeting of the Associations of American Geographers, to be held in New York February 24th-28th 2012, but it will be held at the New York Public Library, giving us access to better facilities for presenting internet-based projects. One session will be a "digital poster session", enabling projects to demonstrate their systems to individual users. Getting permission to run such a series of sessions away from the conference hotels has taken some time, so if you are interested in presenting please contact us as soon as possible. The deadline for session submissions to the AAG is September 28th, so we need to hear from you by Monday 26th at very latest -- and if you leave it until then please include a final title and an abstract of not more than 250 words. However, we would rather hear from you NOW, with a possibly vague indication of what you would be interested in speaking about. The most likely exact date is Monday, February 27th. For more details of the overall meeting, see: http://www.aag.org/cs/annualmeeting Humphrey Southall (Great Britain Historical GIS, University of Portsmouth) Matt Knudsen (New York Public Library) Merrick Lex Berman (China Historical GIS, Harvard University) ======================================================================== Dr Humphrey Southall Reader in Geography/Director, GB Historical GIS, Dept of Geography, University of Portsmouth, Buckingham Building, Lion Terrace, Portsmouth PO1 3HE, UK GBHGIS Office: 023 9284 2500 Direct line: 023 9284 2497 About us: www.port.ac.uk/research/gbhgis About Britain: www.visionofbritain.org.uk