BCS President's Bulletin April 2015

The deadline for submitting your maps for the BCS Awards was 30th April, so I hope that you managed to get your entries in on time. Many of you did as the number of entries for the 2015 Awards is almost double that of last year. All the publicity, particularly on social media has paid dividends with entries coming in from all over the world. The judges are certainly going to be made to work hard this year in order to decide on the winning entries. Judging will take place over the next few weeks and the winners will be announced at the Annual Gala Dinner at the joint BCS/SoC Conference in September. We hope that as many as possible of the winners and runners up will be able to join us to celebrate excellence in Cartography. The programme for the Conference is virtually finalised and publicity will be appearing very shortly via the SoC website and through printed brochures which will be available at Events in May and June. BCS will have an exhibition stand at the ESRI UK Conference on 19th May and at GeoBusiness on 27th and 28th May, so if you are attending these events, please come along and visit the BCS stand. The latest issue of Maplines has just been published and inside you will find nomination forms for BCS Council. If you have ever thought of standing for Council then please do speak to one of the current members Council as we are keen to involve as many people as possible in the running of the Society and new faces are always welcome.

We will also be looking for a new Administrative Consultant to start in October as the current incumbent, Roger Hore, has indicated that he will be standing down after six years. Full details of the role will appear on the BCS website shortly, so please do pass on the details to anyone you know who might be interested.

Cartography on the Internet

 

One BCS Award this year that hasn’t yet closed is the Google Award for Mapping of the General Election Result. I recently heard Danny Dorling speak at SOAS about mapping election results and there are also some useful hints and tips in an article at http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-04/23/general-election-2015-maps, so it might be worth reading it to get some hints and tips before you submit your entry.

It’s certainly been true in a military context, but The Guardian recently highlighted other sorts of battles where mapping is critical. Under the headline of “No battle can be fought without a map”, they highlight the role that mapping is playing on countering land grabs, deforestation, pollution and the rush for mineral exploitation. The amount of material now being used to counter these activities has now come to fruition in a new atlas. The Environmental Justice Atlas is an atlas of environmental struggles across the world. It includes land wars in India, anti-mining activities in Latin America, a legal fight against oil pollution in the Amazon and park protests in Bosnia and Herzegovina. So far, the atlas documents 1,400 conflicts, but this will grow as more information comes in about areas that are little reported on.

The BCS prides itself on being a very inclusive Society and draws its membership from a diverse base. There is possibly a perception that Cartography in the modern era, with a preponderance of technology, is becoming more male dominated. It would be interesting to get figures on the split between male and female in the industry. The Osher Library exhibition certainly seems to think that the role of women has been underplayed and has an exhibition running from March through to October entitled ‘Women in Cartography’. http://oshermaps.org/exhibitions/women-in-cartography To quote its publicity “This exhibition recognizes and celebrates the long overlooked role of women in the world of mapping; bringing their stories, accomplishments, and most importantly their maps to light.” Located at the University of South Maine, I’m afraid it may be a bit too far for a Map Curators Group visit.


 

Most of it has probably been said before, but the article on unmapped places in the world on the BBC website does highlight some of the less well known examples and stresses that even in the days of the ubiquitous internet we still struggle to keep up with the pace of change happening on a global scale. Climate change, urbanisation and natural disasters such as the recent earthquake in Nepal all conspire to make the work of the map maker never-ending. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20141127-the-last-unmapped-places.

 

On a similar vein, I wrote about the Missing Maps project a couple of months ago. Engineering consultancy firm, Arup has now signed up to support this initiative working with Médicins Sans Frontières, and the British and American Red Cross, to digitally map the most vulnerable places in the developing world. http://www.imeche.org/news/engineering/arup-backs-digital-cartography-project-10041509 If we think of vulnerable places, then Nepal will be in the forefront of our minds at the moment. This must be one of the most well mapped and recorded natural disasters of recent years with social media very much to the fore in providing information that is being used extensively by the rescue and aid agencies. Twitter has been almost overwhelmed by the number of sources of information being posted by organisations around the world. Given its relative isolation Nepal is surprisingly well mapped at 1:25,000 and smaller, but a huge amount of update information has been provide by Open Street Map, drone imagery and organisations like MapAction who have deployed to the worst hit areas.

One potential consequence is that we may have to consider the topic for Restless Earth. Since 2011 we have concentrated on the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, but such is the severity of this incident that we may move to something that is more recent and provides some very different challenges to the mapmaker than did the disaster in Japan.

Maptime

BCS is supporting the Maptime initiative in the UK. The concept started in the US, where people interested in making maps would gather informally with their own laptops and software to learn about making maps digitally, using different software packages and applications and sharing knowledge. There are now two groups in the UK, one in West London and one in Southampton, each meeting on a regular basis. Both of them are on Twitter under Maptime West London and Maptime Southampton. You may like to set up a group in another part of the UK. I do know that the West London group are planning to enter the Google Election Mapping Award, either as a group or individually, so Southampton consider the gauntlet thrown down. If you are planning on entering the Google Award entries close on 30th June, not 31st May as it says in ‘Notes from our President’ in Maplines.

And Finally…

This appeared in the press recently, so it definitely sounds like one to add to the playlist! “Strange name but not so strange music is what ambient melodic post-rockers Sleepmakeswaves bring to Port Macquarie on their international tour to support their new album Love of Cartography.

The Great Northern tour celebrates the release of the band's latest single and will see them play 55 shows in 22 countries across Europe, the UK, Asia, Australia and New Zealand in their biggest tour to date. The band had a massive 2014, with Love of Cartography charting at No.31 on the ARIA chart and No.2 on the 100 per cent Independent chart behind Sia.”

Add it to your Christmas list!


Pete Jones MBE FBCart.S CGeog
6th May 2015
E-mail: peter.jones991@mod.uk
Twitter: @geomapnut

President's Bulletin for February 2015

Last month we announced the joint event with the Society of Cartographers in York, in September, and preparations are now well under way for this. The “Call for Contributions” has been issued and closes on 20th March. We have called it a “Call for Contributions” rather than a “Call for Papers” as we are looking for a variety of formats this year. If you have a Paper that you would like to propose then we would love to hear from you or, equally, if you would like to run a more interactive Workshop, then please submit your proposal via http://www.soc.org.uk/socbcs2015/. The topics for this year are:
·    Neo-Cartography
·    3D Mapping
·    Mapping Yorkshire
·    Military Mapping
·    OpenSource Projects
·    Maps on Apps
·    Hand drawn maps
·    Planning for Change (Transport, Urban, Green)
·    An Open Category – “What’s New” – anything else mappy, new and innovative

A very important element of the BCS Symposium is the Annual Awards Ceremony, which is part of the Gala Dinner celebrations. These Awards recognise excellence in cartography in all its forms ranging from traditional paper maps to mapping apps on smartphones. Entries are open until 30th April, so if you have produced a great map since 1st May 2014 then please submit it for the Awards and if you have seen a great looking map then please encourage the producer to send it in. We accept entries from all over the globe as long as they have been produced in the last 12 months – for full details of the Awards, the Rules (Updated Rules for the John C Bartholomew Award) and how to enter, please visit http://www.cartography.org.uk/default.asp?contentID=579. Last year the overall BCS Award winner was showcased in Stanfords window in London, so if you would like to see your map there as well then you only have a few weeks left to enter.

Cartography on the Web

As the BBC reported, “The Times History of the World in Maps” has recently been published and if you enjoyed the BCS 50th Anniversary book, then this will be a “must have” purchase. Lavishly illustrated, it stretches from documents containing maps produced by ancient civilisations all the way through to the modern day. One of my favourites is the oval map of the battle of Gettysburg. Clear and simple, despite being a static representation of a battle that raged over three days, it manages to convey the terrain that was to play such a key role in the outcome:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30840318




It amazes me the number of times you hear about the “death of the paper map” and then

shortly afterwards about its “resurrection”. Recent press reports confirm that sales of OS paper maps have risen recently with 2014 figures showing sales up by 3%. A few thousand miles away in Cuba, the paper map is very much alive and well. With a growing tourist industry, designer Stephan Van Dam has designed paper maps specifically with the tourist in mind for a country where internet access is by no means readily available – about 5% of the island is covered. So if you turn up in Havana with your map app, you may we in for a bit of a rude awakening. http://www.citylab.com/design/2015/02/in-cuba-maps-make-a-comeback/385089/

Forget all the debate about ‘becksploitation’ and worry instead about what could be happening to the London Underground Map this year. The handy pocket tube map, loved by many and collected by a fair few as well, is set to undergo some major changes in 2015 and with TFL taking over services and the growth of Crossrail, is the current format of the pocket map going to be too small to cope? Londonist has an intriguing video outlining the changes and the way that they could be incorporated. http://londonist.com/2015/02/the-new-tube-map-what-will-it-look-like.php 




Loads of map related links on this site http://www.jonathancrowe.net/maps/ and the reason I chose it was for the piece on mapping anniversaries. Google Maps is 10 years old this year and in a relatively short space of time has done a great job by raising awareness of the importance of mapping in a digital age. Whilst we may have been critical of its style and portrayal in the early days, its inclusion last year as one of MapCarte’s 365 notable maps shows that it has truly “come of age”. Having been around a little longer, and still as powerful and popular as ever, National Geographic celebrates its Centenary in 2015 http://news-beta.nationalgeographic.com/2015/01/150123-maps-mapping-cartography-history-national-geographic-centennial/.

Ordnance Survey has recently undergone some significant changes, announcing plans to become a Government Owned Company or GovCo, redesigning its logo and just into March finally announcing its new Chief Executive. With the news that Nigel Clifford has been appointed as the new CE still relatively hot off the press, most column inches and twitter debate was devoted to the rebranding exercise which seemed to divide opinion. It also spawned a parody Twitter account “British Survey” which is irreverently funny and has made me smile on a number of occasions.

Special Interest Groups

This month I am spotlighting the Historical Military Mapping Special Interest Group, which does very much what it says on the can. This SIG would really benefit from some direct support from members and the Convener, Dr John Peaty, would love to hear from anyone who would be willing to get involved as either Secretary or Newsletter Editor for the Group. Last year The Group organised a very successful Bomber Command study tour to Lincolnshire which took in visits to East Kirkby Airfield, the home of the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre, the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight at RAF Coningsby, the visitor centre at RAF Scampton, as well as several “off the beaten track” venues thanks to the support of Phil Bonner the Aviation Development Officer at Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.

This year the group is crossing the channel to visit First World War battlefields and will be organising a workshop at York. John has also recently been in touch with Simon Bendry at UCL, who is the national co-ordinator of the school centenary visits to the Western Front battlefields. He wants to meet because one of the things that the schools are crying out for is trench maps and BCS will investigate how we can become involved.

And finally…

Well, nobody guessed that the BBC quote in the last bulletin, “…..is a thing of beauty, with a wonderfully tightly packaged rear end” actually referred to the new McLaren F1 car for the 2015 season.

Pete Jones MBE FBCart.S CGeog

11th March 2015

E-mail: peter.jones991@mod.uk

Twitter: @geomapnut

BCS President's Bulletin July 2014

The summer months tend to be when the news stories dry up and the media outlets are obliged to drag out the funny, the odd, the non-news and frankly the fairly weird news stories. But luckily 'silly season’ hasn’t extended as far as this bulletin which retains its sense of decorum – but let’s face it by the August bulletin I might be running out of ideas. Have you been away on holiday yet? How far did you travel and how long did it take you to get there? My guess is that for most people it will have been less than 12 hours, so just be thankful that you weren’t travelling in 1881 which is the date of this Isochronic World Map. To quote its explanatory text, “Isochronic travel chart for passengers showing the shortest number of days journey from London by the quickest through routes and using further such conveyances as are available without unreasonable cost. It is supposed that local preparations have been made and that other circumstances are favourable”. Europe could still be reached ‘within 10 days’ so as long as you went for a fortnight you’d probably be alright; the east coast of America was between 10 and 20 days and for the long haul to Australia you would need to allow more than 40 days. Which set me thinking and prompted me to issue a challenge. The technology now at our disposal must make it fairly simple to calculate a similar map for today which will show just how much the World has shrunk. We know where the Proclaimers could have travelled from (something that the Commonwealth Games recently hammered home time and time again), so calculating an updated ‘Isochronic Travel Chart’ should be relatively straightforward. Sounds to me like an excellent project for a BCS Award entry.

 

In  what the headline calls ‘soft’ power, the Vietnamese have hit on a new way to push their case for ownership of disputed islands in the South China Sea, map dresses. This latest move by Vietnam has allegedly generated more Chinese media coverage than Vietnam’s naval clashes with Chinese maritime forces in the South China Sea. China and Vietnam have been involved in several rounds of violent maritime clashes in recent months, especially since early May when China surreptitiously installed an oil rig near the Paracel Islands which were taken by China from Vietnam in 1974 after a short but fierce naval battle. The traditional dresses are printed with maps of Vietnamese islands in the South China Sea claimed or occupied by China.

Cartography on the Web

An interesting site that propose a list of “Map vocabulary all kids should know”. It’s by no means an exhaustive list and I think I would probably not agree with all kids having to know ‘Goode’s Interrupted Homolosine’, but everyone to their own. Full details at http://kidworldcitizen.org/2013/06/02/language-of-maps-kids-should-know/

 

Children are obviously very much to the fore as there is also an extensive syllabus produced called the 21^st Century Skills Map for Geography. Whilst it is American it does contain a lot of good material and although Cartography per se doesn’t get much dedicated coverage there is a lot of map work and GIS involved and it’s heartening to see forward looking concepts such as ‘media literacy’ being covered and the cartographic elements are mostly found in the ‘Creativity and Innovation’ section. http://www.p21.org/storage/documents/21stcskillsmap_geog.pdf Altogether a little bit more inspiring than the GCSE curriculum presentation.

 

Those of you who attended the Symposium in 2012 may remember that Georg Gartner, President of the International Cartographic Association, was one of our guests and proposed the toast to the Society at the end of the Gala Dinner. He has recently published an article entitled “Why Maps Matter"The Relevance of Cartography," A Cartographer's Perspective” It makes very interesting reading and underlines what we have been saying at the BCS for sometime, that despite the changes in technology and access Cartography is as important now as it always has been . http://www.esri.com/esri-news/arcnews/summer14articles/why-maps-matter

 

A recent article in Maplines covered the topic of maps of fictional lands, a common cartographic pastime. This website takes it a step further by collecting together some truly stunning examples of fictional cartography, where the creator’s art is allowed to run free resulting in some beautiful images. http://www.cartographersguild.com/content/

Society of Cartographers

As part of the celebrations of their 50^th Anniversary the Society of Cartographers arranged a talk at University College London by Ed Parsons, the Geospatial Technologist of Google. Entitled ‘Celebrating Cartography’ the talk was a fascinating review of the use of maps and geographic information today and the way that it has grown over the last ten years into a multi-billion pound industry. Now that it is so familiar, it is sobering to note that Google Earth recently celebrated just its 10^th birthday. We have adopted what was ground breaking technology remarkably quickly and it is easy to forget that with the rapid technology advances things that we take for granted haven’t actually been around all that long. Google Maps has undergone a similar ‘mass adoption’ and there are now one billion users, with one third of all internet users accessing Google maps every month. The improvements that have been made to Google Maps have moved it from being a functional if rather ugly product to something which now embodies much that is good in modern online cartography and it was duly recognised as such in the ICA Map Carte selection a couple of months ago. I think the key point that Ed made, however, was the way in which everybody is now using maps on the web. We are not just looking at maps on the web, we are using them much more to support our day-to-day activities, be it journey planning, finding the nearest Indian restaurant or checking out areas to buy a house, which are just a few examples of how they are being used. As Ed mentioned in his closing remarks, Maps are now being used more widely than at any point in history.

 

ICA MapCarte

 

My selection from the Map Carte nominations this month starts with a classic from the 1840s, a birds eye view of China, which appears to be years ahead of its time. We are now very used to perspective views as a means of portraying geographic information, but this was produced at a time when the producer’s imagination and vision played a large part in the composition.

 

 

Topographic maps of Switzerland are an art form and have long been recognised as probably the best topographic maps in the world for design, consistency and presentation. I don’t think I can improve on the description as on the MapCarte website, so here it is:

“The new range of 1:25,000 scale maps by Swisstopo, of which the Hauenstein sheet is one, shows that they have not lost their eye. Building upon the legacy of elegant maps that have gone before, this updated design shows clear lineage with contemporary flair. The lines are cleaner, the marks almost more deliberate. The text is so well placed it looks as if it sits perfectly at home amongst the other map features. The density of information is almost unbelievable and to achieve such a well balanced product without recourse to more omission and simplification is astonishing. The classic Imhof-inspired hillshade lends a clarity and brightness to the topography and gives it the unmistakable look of a Swiss topographic map

I am currently reading 'One Summer: America 1927' by Bill Bryson. In one chapter he describes the huge changes that the building of so many high rise buildings had on New York. It’s ‘population’ swelled immensely although most of it was daytime working population, where a single skyscraper could hold 50,000 people. Joey Chedarchuk has taken a similar theme and show New York, or more specifically Manhattan, as a ‘breathing’ city reflecting its population throughout the day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

BCS Awards

 

The Awards are now open for 2015, so I hope you are all planning on which categories you are going to enter. One additional ‘bonus’ this year is that the winner of the Stanfords Award, which also took the overall BCS Award, currently has pride of place in Stanfords Shop window in Covent Garden. So if you really want to get your map in the public eye, what better way than to enter it for the Awards next year?

 

Restless Earth

 

I mentioned earlier the level of attention that cartography for children and students is getting on the web and the interest in our Restless Earth workshops certainly backs this up. We circulated all schools who have expressed interest in Restless Earth and we now have 28 workshops arranged for the academic year 2014/15. We have almost become the victims of our own success as resourcing these is becoming a challenge and we discussed at Council the possibility of appointing an Education Officer. We are currently seeking sources of funding for this to see if is feasible as we can’t really continue to rely on volunteers for what has become such a large programme. If you know of any charitable trusts who may like to support this please let me know as we would like to target our appeal. Similarly if you feel you could offer to support a workshop by coming along on the day to help that would be great, the current programme is available on the Restless Earth page of the BCS website.

 

And finally

 

Well, as it is the ‘silly season’ I thought I’d include a silly map. This one apparently shows what each nation leads the world in. The website is no more specific than “They collected the information from various sources and sprinkled in some quirkier rankings” The fact that Myanmar (Burma) leads the world in speaking Burmese is perhaps not surprising, but that the UK leads the world in ‘Fascist Organisation’ is at best surprising and at worst downright libelous. The full zoomable version is at http://www.eyeopening.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/world-map1.png

 

 

 

Pete Jones MBE FBCart.S CGeog

8th August 2014

E-mail: peter.jones991@mod.uk

Twitter: @geomapnut

 

BCS President's Monthly Bulletin April 2014

That very rare event of a nice British Bank Holiday weekend meant that this monthly bulleting comes out a few days later than planned as it was just too nice to be sitting indoors at the computer and the garden really did need a lot of work on it. So if you have been regularly checking the website for my latest musing, I apologise to both of you.

BCS Events

Historical Military Mapping Group Bomber Command Study Tour

The HMMG Bomber Command Study Tour that took place in early April proved to be a huge success despite some initial problems with getting it off the ground. As it turned out the timing coincided with the 70^th anniversary of the Nuremberg Raid, Bomber Command’s costliest operation of the war in terms of aircraft and crew lost. This was brought home on the first stop on our tour, The Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre, an aviation museum in East Kirkby. The day prior to our arrival a cross had been laid out representing the 95 aircraft and over 700 crew who didn’t return. Over the three day tour we visited a number of sites associated with Bomber Command, the highlight of which was RAF Coningsby, the home of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. The aircraft had spent the winter being serviced and made ready for the upcoming display season and we were very fortunate to be treated to an impromptu flying display by the Dakota and a Spitfire, with the Lancaster also outside its hangar with all four engines running – a sight and sound not to be missed. A full report of the Study Tour will appear in the Summer issue of Maplines.

The old and the new, Lancaster in the foreground, Typhoon in the background

Map Curators Workshop

The next SIG event apart from Symposium activities will be the Map Curators Group workshop in Birmingham in early September. The theme of the MCG 2014 Workshop is: "Hands across the map; co-operation and partnership in map collections". It is being held in the University of Birmingham in their Conference Centre. The Workshop will be held on Wednesday 10 September.  On the Tuesday 9 September a training day for those who find they have to deal with maps or need to refresh their knowledge entitled, "Feral maps and how to tame them" has been organised. On Thursday 11 September a visit to a map collection will take place. Full details will shortly be available via the BCS website, so keep checking for details.

BCS Annual Symposium

And having mentioned the Symposium this year’s looks like it might outdo even last year’s anniversary event in popularity. By the close of the early bird deadline on 30^th April, we had already had 105 delegates signed up and since then the number has risen to over 120, an impressive number still six weeks ahead of the event. The full details of a very impressive programme of talks and workshops is available on the website, so if you haven’t already booked check out all that is happening and get your registration in soon.

Geographical Association Conference

For the first time the BCS had a stand and ran a workshop at the Geographical Association Conference at the University of Surrey in mid-April. To quote from their website, “The Geographical Association (GA) is a UK-based subject association with the charitable objective of furthering geographical knowledge and understanding through education. We support teachers, students, tutors and academics at all levels of education through journals, publications, training events, projects, websites and by lobbying government about the importance of geography.”

The main reason for BCS attendance was to increase awareness of the BCS amongst the education sector and to publicise our Restless Earth workshop. We were very successful in both cases. We signed up a few new members and certainly increased awareness through talking to a lot of the delegates about what we had to offer as a Society. Of particular interest was the fact that we got a lot of enquiries from primary school staff about what we could do for the younger age groups, something for us to ponder on. As there was no pre-booking system for the workshop we were totally unsure of how many delegates would turn up to the abridged version of the Restless Earth Workshop, condensed to 45 minutes to fit our allocated slot. As it turned out we were full and I think the stewards actually had to turn delegates away; it generated a huge amount of interest and we have already had several enquiries about running workshops in 2014/15 as a direct result.

Cartography in the news

As part of the government’s reform of qualification and the curriculum to "better prepare pupils for life after school", the Department for Education has recently published its GCSE Subject Content for a number of subjects including Geography and it is heartening to see that maps and cartography feature quite strongly. This publication sets out the learning outcomes and content coverage required for GCSE specifications in geography.

The main body of the document includes two specific references to maps and GIS and states that the GCSE specification should enable students to:

“develop and extend their competence in a range of skills including those used in fieldwork, in using maps and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and in researching secondary evidence, including digital sources; and develop their competence in applying sound enquiry and investigative approaches to questions and hypotheses (study like a geographer”

It should enable students to demonstrate skills including:

“The use of a range of maps, atlases, Ordnance Survey maps, satellite imagery and other graphic and digital material including the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS), to obtain, illustrate, analyse and evaluate geographical information. To include making maps and sketches to present and interpret geographical information”

There is also an annex detailing specific skills to be developed which includes:

“Cartographic skills

• use and understand gradient, contour and spot height on OS maps and other isoline maps (eg weather charts, ocean bathymetric charts)
• interpret cross sections and transects
• use and understand coordinates, scale and distance
• describe and interpret geo-spatial data presented in a GIS framework”

                                                                                                                 

The full document can be found at, https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/301253/GCSE_geography.pdf

I say old chap these new-fangled developments in mapping are jolly interesting don’t you know. All you need is a tellurometer, ‘a girl to help’, not forgetting that we are producing maps at ‘three bus lengths to an inch’, and then you can’t go wrong! If you have absolutely no idea what I am talking about check out the video clip at www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7SJVBX7jxo#t=17, made by Pathé in 1961.

Goodbye to paper maps and pdf’s, hello to cloud enabled GIS

The latest death knell for paper maps was sounded on 20^th April by Matt Sheehan. To quote his article, the full details of which can be found at the link, “You cannot beat a beautiful paper map. Cartographers are talented people. But in today’s fast paced, mobile world, paper maps used for day to day work are no longer practical.” The article is at, http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/mobilegis/2014/04/20/goodbye-to-paper-maps-and-pdfs-hello-to-cloud-enabled-gis/.

Sorry I just can’t agree with this as a statement, and even the author concedes rather arguing against himself, “Is this the end for paper maps? Absolutely not, they will always be with us. Just used less widely ….” If the quantity and quality of entries for this year’s BCS Awards is anything to go by then the paper map is alive and well and in particularly rude health. Admittedly, they do not all lend themselves to “day to day” work, but many do and remain the best way of navigating and understanding the area around you. We cannot afford to be complacent and the growth of digital and web cartography is causing us to have a rethink about award categories to better reflect the modern cartographic industry but there are more than enough instances of paper maps being critically important to everyday activities. One interesting statistic that backs this up is that in the last 5 years, search and rescue in Scotland has seen a five-fold increase in calls due to people taking to the mountains with just their smartphone and then losing signal or battery strength and getting into difficulties.

The fact that Newly designed US Topo maps covering West Virginia, New Jersey and Georgia are now available online for free download, also shows that the days of the paper map are no quite yet numbered. The new editions have a crisper, cleaner design - enhancing readability of maps for online and printed use. The complete article at http://nationalmap.gov/ustopo/ explains how the design is looking to combine the best of both printed and online to enhance the usability of the product.

MapCarte for April

The selection of maps for the month of April covers a wide range of styles and types from the antique to the ultra-modern and there should be something, as usual, to suit everybody’s taste. My top three are quite eclectic and cover the entire range. Wainwright is a name synonymous with memorable cartography, with the emphasis very much on ‘art’. His hand drawn maps of the Lake District, an integral part of his pictorial guides, are truly stunning, their clarity and ease of use enhanced by being ‘simple’ pen and ink compositions. A combination of planimetric and perspective views enhances their usability and they remain as useful today as they were when first produced in the 1950s.

John Ogilby enjoyed the title of His Majesty’s Cosmographer and Geographic Printer at a time long before the term ‘cartographer’ had been coined. The first time I saw an illustration of Ogilby’s strip maps, I remember thinking how modern they looked, their presentation of information clear and linear and not subject to much of the fanciful artistry of the time. Very simple in conception but ‘breaking the mould’ in many ways, not least in not maintaining a constant North, they are easy to read and understand and poring over them today large elements of the routes are still clearly recognisable.

My final ‘choice’ is Google Maps. I can’t imagine that many regular users of the internet are unfamiliar with Google maps and I certainly use it on an almost daily basis. Whilst stories of mistakes still appear in the press, most recently the removal of Basingstoke, this really does a disservice to an API that has popularised mapping and enabled anyone to customise their information and present it in cartographic formats. Whilst the results of this opening up are not always pleasing on the eye, it has greatly increased awareness of mapping and its uses. To quote the Map Carte description, “Quite simply the map is, and continues to be revolutionary. The 2005 map would get nowhere near MapCarte. The 2014 version is state-of-the-art and in less than 10 years Google are leading big league cartography and fully deserve inclusion.”

And Finally….

I know I shouldn’t like this, but as an example of map silliness it works. Featured in the Onion “America’s Finest News Source”, it purports to show the distribution of Kevins on a global basis, something in which the US is a world leader and as the website says, ““There are certainly areas of Australia, the U.K., and Canada where the concentration of Kevins is high, but they all fall well short of the United States’ Kevin population across all demographics. And when we look at the benchmark Kevin-to-John ratio, no country comes even remotely close to the staggering .205 figure the U.S. posted in 2013.” What more can I say? Full details at http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-us-still-leads-world-with-highest-density-o,35856/

Pete Jones MBE FBCart.S CGeog

10th May 2014

 

Email: Peter.Jones991@mod.uk

Twitter: @geomapnut