August 2005
- Spatially Adjusted
- Another blog to tell you about, and I can’t believe I missed reporting this one earlier: Spatially Adjusted, a GIS blog by James Fee, with a lot of stuff on ESRI and other software….
- Hurricane Katrina: Before and After
- (Updated) Susan Kitchens has compiled and sent along an animated image (680-KB animated GIF) that shows the New Orleans area before and after Hurricane Katrina passed through; per her suggestion, I’m hosting it on my server. See previous entries: Hurricane…
- Google Earth Blog
- Another new blog to bring to your attention: Frank Taylor’s solid and eponymous Google Earth Blog. Via Ogle Earth. Map blogging is coming on fast and furious; that’s the fifth new blog I’ve reported on this month, and I know…
- Hurricane Katrina: The Aftermath
- (Many updates) Watch Hurricane Katrina’s path via satellite imagery or radar; both are NOAA pages and both require Java. Via Paulo. Kathryn Cramer has been collecting aerial images of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, along with some…
- Satellite Images of European Natural Disasters
- In other natural disaster news, Vector One has linked to ESA satellite imagery of the Portuguese wildfires and floods in Austria, Switzerland and Germany….
- Coordinates
- Coordinates is the journal of the Map and Geography Round Table of the American Library Association. It’s an online journal; articles are published irregularly rather than on an issue-by-issue basis, and, even better, it’s freely available, in HTML and PDF…
- LA Times: Forbes Smiley and the Culture of Stealing
- An op-ed in today’s LA Times by Rachel Shteir uses the Forbes Smiley case to argue that we are now living in a culture of stealing: “Before Smiley’s arrest, he was, to all appearances, a respectable map dealer with a…
- Hurricane Katrina
- (Many updates) I’ve been looking for maps and satellite imagery of Hurricane Katrina. So far, I’ve found this page from the National Hurricane Center and this page (a popup) from the NOAA Storm Tracker site, which has many of the…
- Atlas of Antarctic Research
- With online map services invariably using some variant of the Mercator projection, Antarctica inevitably receives short shrift. (Stefan notes that the same is true with Google Earth.) The remedy for this is the USGS’s Atlas of Antarctic Research, the interface…
- Reader Survey Results: Part Two
- Here’s the long-promised, long-delayed second part of the results of The Map Room’s reader survey. You may recall that the survey took place in early April, and it took me approximately forever to get around to tabulating the results. The…
- Hargrett Library’s Rare Map Collection
- Peacay reports that he has discovered the Hargrett Library’s map collection at the University of Georgia, which, according to the site, “maintains a collection of more than 800 historic maps spanning nearly 500 years, from the sixteenth century through the…
- Protected Forest Logged, Mapping Error to Blame
- A protected forest in Tasmania was accidentally logged due to a mapping error, ABC News (Australia) reports. Via Cartography; see also GeoCarta. Update, 10:40 PM: From ABC News, “Forestry Tasmania general manager Kim Creek says the error was caused by…
- Library of Congress: Places in the News
- Peacay notices that the Library of Congress’s Geography and Map Division has a Places in the News page; it currently has a map of the Gaza Strip (see previous entry) and a hurricane tracking chart. Presumably updated as events change;…
- Jack Joyce Profile Focuses on Mapmaking
- The Georgia Straight, Vancouver’s alternative paper, has a profile of Jack Joyce, who runs International Travel Maps and Books, a map store with a publishing arm. The article focuses exclusively on the latter, and, more specifically, on how maps are…
- Cartography 101 at the Johnsonese
- Opening tomorrow at the Johnsonese Gallery in Chicago, an exhibition of map-based art called Cartography 101. The gallery’s web site has a few examples, but I expect they won’t stay on the front page after the show closes on September…
- Google Earth and Disputed Borders and Names
- I’ve briefly mentioned maps’ normative function before: they not only describe reality, but, by assigning names and boundaries, they define it. National mapping agencies make use of maps’ normative function all the time: to pick a relatively non-controversial example, Canadian…
- Book Review Roundup
- Directions has a review of Cynthia Brewer’s Designing Better Maps: A Guide for GIS Users, which sounds really interesting: it’s a book about design choices for cartography — i.e., what looks good, what doesn’t. From the review: “[It] covers all…
- GeoCarta
- Back when I started The Map Room, map blogs were few and far between; nowadays I’m learning about new blogs all the time. The most recent one I’ve stumbled across is Roger Hart’s GeoCarta, which he describes as “a blog…
- Maps from the State Library of New South Wales
- Crux was a 2000 exhibition of rare maps from the State Library of New South Wales. The exhibition web pages aren’t nearly as interesting, though, as viewing all 89 maps from the exhibition via the library’s online catalogue, and you…
- Hand-drawn Burning Man Map
- Burning Man 2005 is upon us — or at least it’s upon some of you. Lisa Hoffman’s hand-drawn map (834-KB GIF) of the site is quite literally a work of art. Via Boing Boing….
- Gaza Strip Withdrawal Maps
- The removal of Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip has occasioned some fine cartography from newspapers. The New York Times had an excellent graphic in its Sunday, Aug. 14 edition, which I can’t find online. The Globe and Mail’s map…
- Mapping Exchange Rates
- Currency exchange site Oanda.com uses a map-based Java application to show fluctuations in world currency exchange rates: the countries are coloured based on whether their currencies are up or down, and by how much, compared to the selected country. Clever….
- Avian Flu Epidemic Map
- It’s a 2.2-MB PDF, but have a look at this nicely done map from the UN World Food Program, which plots the avian influenza outbreak against poultry and pig densities in southeast Asia, presumably to examine the potential impact of…
- Paris Metro as Google Maps Hack
- I like what Jef’s done with this map of the Paris metro done with Google Maps. The lines are laid out as vectors, and it includes routing between two points, including line changes and estimated travel time. Via Google Maps…
- Google Maps Hacking Roundup
- The number of hacks and mashups of Google Maps prevents me from reporting on every single one of them properly, but I am paying attention, and will report on the more noteworthy ones, and on trends, when I can. The…
- Hacking Virtual Earth
- Rev Dan Catt says, “Even though Google get a lot of press for their API, I believe that Virtual Earth is far easier to code and gives you more hooks and feedback to use. … From a coding point of…
- LA Times: Maps Outpaced by Suburban Growth
- From today’s edition of the LA Times, a story about how maps can’t keep up with the pace of suburban growth in fast-growing areas like California, Nevada and Arizona. Some of those areas add thousands of new streets a year….
- Updates on the Forbes Smiley Case
- What is to be done? Much discussion over on MapHist about what the Forbes Smiley arrest can teach us about map security, with suggestions about how to tighten security in map collections, such as CCTV, limiting what can be taken…
- Antique Maps at HKUST
- The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s Antique Maps Database: “The Antique Maps of China collection includes more than 230 maps, charts, pictures, books and atlases. It represents almost all samples of China maps produced by European cartographers from…
- Cartography: CCA Blog
- Cartography is the blog of (or for) the Canadian Cartographic Association; it’s also good reading for “other individuals interested in all things cartographic,” writes Paul Heersink, who submitted this link. It’s been running since April; its choice of topics has…
- A9 Adds Maps
- A9, Amazon’s search engine, has for a while had street-level photos as a feature of its local search service (“Yellow Pages”), at least for a few U.S. cities. They’ve now added maps — from MapQuest, no less: you can view…
- Flash Earth
- Flash Earth presents Google Maps and Virtual Earth satellite imagery through a Flash application. Why a Flash application, you may ask? The creator, Paul Neave, explains why: [T]he interface is much smoother to use. You get a sense of location…
- Alabama Maps
- Alabama Maps is a big collection of maps from the University of Alabama’s Cartographic Research Laboratory, in three main sections: contemporary maps, which features maps generated by the laboratory; historical maps, a collection of digitized images of old maps (not…
- Forbes Smiley Case: 10 Maps Missing at Boston Library
- The Boston Globe reports that 10 rare maps are missing from the Boston Public Library. The library began to check its collection after Forbes Smiley, a frequent visitor to the library, was arrested last month. See also this Boston Globe…
- iPod Subway Maps
- If you’ve got an iPod with a colour screen, you can put subway maps on it. It’s a simple matter to put digital images on an iPod; where maps are concerned, though, it’s a challenge to make sure they’re legible…
- Forbes Smiley News Roundup
- Tony Campbell is keeping tabs on news coverage of the Forbes Smiley court case here, and has asked to be informed of other reporting on this story. For the sake of completeness, here are some earlier news stories on the…
- Cartography Calendars
- John Docktor maintains online calendars of upcoming cartography events and exhibitions….
- International Antiquarian Map Sellers Association
- The International Antiquarian Map Sellers Association, founded in 2002 to “promote the professional trade in antiquarian, collectible maps and related books,” has a code of ethics; given recent events, see especially section 3. Not that professional sanctions have ever been…
- Map Dealer in Court Yesterday
- E. Forbes Smiley III, who was charged with stealing maps from a university library (see previous entry), was in court yesterday: he pleaded not guilty; his next court appearance is scheduled for October 3. More on the arrest from the…
- GPS Tracklog and Buyer’s Guide
- Rich Owings, author of GPS Mapping: Make Your Own Maps (Amazon, web site), reports that he’s started a new blog about GPS and mapping software called GPS Tracklog. Like The Map Room, it’s aimed at mere mortals rather than professionals….
- Map Librarian Profiled
- The Worcester Telegram & Gazette profiles Clark University map and geography librarian Beverly J. Presley for its “On the Job” feature. A brief but interesting look at map librarianship….
- Map Dealer Faces Theft Charges
- When you read The Island of Lost Maps, a book about map theft by Miles Harvey, you get the clear impression that neither map librarians nor map dealers were comfortable admitting that map thieves existed in their midst — that…
- Atlas of Language Structures
- The World Atlas of Language Structures, in preparation, “will show structural features of languages in much the same way as linguistic data are displayed in dialect atlases.” I’ve seen German dialect atlases that show how words change from place to…
- Interactive Nolli Map
- Giambattista Nolli’s 1748 map of Rome was a masterpiece: it was detailed, accurate and eschewed the prevailing “bird’s-eye” perspective for an overhead view. Researchers at the University of Oregon has put together a major web site on Nolli’s map, complete…
- Frederik den Femte’s Atlas
- Frederik den Femte, King of Denmark between 1746 and 1766, had a map collection that grew to more than 3500 plates in 55 volumes. Denmark’s Royal Library has scanned these plates and made them available online; a plugin is required…
- Reader Survey Results: Part One
- Way back in April, I asked my readers to fill out a short survey; 120 of you did, which I thought was pretty good. It’s taken me some time to compile the results — which is putting it mildly, since…
- Google Maps Plugin for OS X Address Book
- As I’ve mentioned before, there are several hacks out there to change the Mac OS X Address Book’s address-mapping feature from MapQuest to other mapping services. (See previous entries: Map Sites: Hints, Tips and Observations; More Address Book Hacks.) The…
- Directions on MSN Virtual Earth
- A week after the launch, Directions’s Adena Schutzberg takes a sober second look at MSN Virtual Earth, its features — including “Locate Me” and the Scratch Pad — and its (lack of) hacks. “While I tend to agree that for…
- Ogle Earth
- I don’t know how I missed Ogle Earth, but now that I’ve found it I’m keeping an eye on it. Written by Stefan Geens, with a mandate is to focus on Google Earth and its competitors, Ogle Earth has been…
- Places and Spaces
- Places and Spaces is an exhibit that’s been making the rounds, both online and in real life (it’s at Wikimania this weekend, for example). It compares and contrasts geographical maps with maps of less physical, more abstract things — cartograms,…
- More Satellite Landmarks: Best of World Maps
- Another site collecting interesting satellite images from the online mapping services in the Google Globetrotting idiom: Best of World Maps, which provides links to landmarks through Google Maps, Google Earth, and NASA World Wind, which is a new twist. No…
- Children Map the World: The Book
- The Barbara Petchenik Children’s Map Competition has been running every two years since 1993; it’s an international award for maps made by children under the age of 15. More information is available at the International Cartographic Association’s Commission on…
- Google and GPS on Nintendo
- You’ve got to be kidding me: Google Maps and GPS on a Nintendo DS. Via Engadget. See previous entry: Google Maps on Mobile Devices….
- MSN Virtual Earth: Lessons Learned
- From the MSN Search Weblog: what they’ve learned, one week after the release of MSN Virtual Earth. (I still think that launching too soon was the fundamental problem; a lot of the problems they agree need fixing were merely things…
- Question: Smaller World Aeronautical Charts for a Wall?
- Readers have written in asking about wall-sized maps before, but Joe Thompson is looking for something a lot more specific. Actually, in his case, the charts he wants are too big; he’s looking for a way to make them smaller:…
- Some Medieval Maps
- University course pages are frequently hidden gems. Readings for week nine of Prof. Kelly’s Medieval Literature and Culture course at Northeastern University focus on maps and travel literature from the 13th to 15th centuries, and include some excellent scans of…
- In-Car GPS Review
- Slate has a review of five aftermarket GPS-based in-car, dashboard-mounted navigation systems, focusing on setup, screen size and, if you can believe it, how nice the robotic voices sound. None apparently stand out from the others in terms of accuracy…
- Preservation and Accessibility
- According to this article, the USGS’s shift from paper to digital maps is generating all sorts of potential problems. Some of them are typically bureaucratic: figuring out which agency is responsible for archiving and preserving which data (and paying for…
- Western Map Libraries
- The web site of the Western Association of Map Libraries includes a handy page linking to map collections, mostly in university libraries, in its coverage area (via mapping.com)….
- CSM Review of Why Geography Matters
- David J. Smith — he of mapping.com — has a review in tomorrow’s Christian Science Monitor of former National Geographic Society editor Harm de Blij’s new book, Why Geography Matters, which apparently is an apologia for geography, geographic and cartographic…
- New URL for All Points Blog
- Directions magazine’s All Points Blog launched last February, and it’s become one of the best mapping blogs out there. I guess they could be considered the competition, in terms of us both being advertising-supported blogs, but we’re serving different niches:…
- Blast Radius Map
- This Google Maps hack is both informative and chilling: “HYDESim maps overpressure radii generated by a ground-level detonation; these radii are an indicator of structural damage to buildings.” In other words, it overlays the blast radius of a nuclear-grade explosion…
- A Google-Powered Map Game
- I’ve posted those interactive geography games and quizzes before, and I’ve posted Google Maps-based sites before, but I think that Find the Landmark is the first map game that is powered by Google Maps (rather than Flash). Here’s how Geoff…
