NACIS XX

The twentieth annual meeting of the North American Cartographic Information Soceity

By Chris Mixon

Recently I had the opportunity to attend the twentieth annual meeting of the North American Cartographic Information Society or NACIS in Knoxville, TN.NACIS is an organization that was founded in 1980, made up of professionals from private, academic and government sectors whose focus is in promoting communication within the map information community.I would like to invite you to the NACIS website for a more detailed description at www.nacis.org. 

I had participated in NACIS several years back while at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee but had lost touch since my departure.Having received my current job here at Auburn, I felt it was appropriate to reconnect with the map community through NACIS, whose membership includes a large number of map librarians, GIS information specialists, geographers, cartographers and the like.I am happy that I made the decision because it not only allowed me to see a few old friends but to meet several new ones who may be invaluable to my work here at Auburn.There are not a lot of folks who care to deal with the subject of cataloging and filing of maps or other spatial information.Most of those who are actually considered experts in this area are a part of NACIS.Henry McCurley has enlisted one such individual to come and speak to us about map cataloging – Paige Andrew of Penn State University will be scheduled early next year (we’ll keep you posted).

The Conference

On Wednesday, October 4^th, there was a pre-conference symposium by NACIS and the International Cartographic Association (ICA) Commission on Maps and the Internet.Two things stood out for me in this all day session:

One was somewhat technical and a little over my head; Maximizing the Value of Existing GIS Software by Using OPENGIS XML Based Interface by Ignacio Guerrero of Intergraph Corporation, Huntsville, AL.This introduced the concept of OPENGIS XML.In a nutshell the main goal of the OPENGIS consortium is the complete integration of geospatial data and geoprocessing resources into mainstream computing.In my own words: to set a standard for sharing spatial information across all computing platforms and operating systems.I would love to go into greater depth about this paper, but I’m afraid It was all to new to me.An excellent power point explanation may be found at http://www.opengis.org/techno/presentations/VancouverIntro_files/frame.htm.

The other presentation that I took interest in was by R.G. Cromley and Patrick McGlamery of the University of Connecticut entitled A Geo-Relational Approach to the Dissemination of Geographic Information on the Internet.These individuals have taken on the task of collecting spatial information from various state agencies throughout the State of Connecticut and making it available through the library, either online, in physical form or both.This includes basically anything they can get their hands on, from aerial photography, GIS data of all kinds, to maps old and new.They are driven by the fact that Connecticut is eliminating their county government system and they want to obtain this information before it is somehow lost or in the hands of the new system that may or may not be as likely to offer the information.

The opening session of NACIS XX was about National Geographic Society’s Map Machine (www.nationalgeographic.com/maps/) by Allen Carroll, Chief Cartographer at NGS.He demonstrated many features that I have not been able to access, usually due to the site crashing my system.He did note this as a difficulty with some modules but admitted that they were counting on bandwidth technology to “catch up” in the near future.Internet mapping was a major theme throughout the conference, and bandwidth was a common concern and a problem for many trying to serve spatial information over the Internet. Another concern expressed by Kathryn Engstrom of the Library of Congress, was ‘how will we catalog Internet maps and electronic spatial data’.Kathryn is the Geography and Map reference librarian at LC.We spoke at length about map cataloging and Voyager.

On Thursday I attended a session was later given on Thursday by Steven Morris of North Carolina State University Libraries.They are undertaking a project similar to that of Connecticut’s the paper’s abstract follows:

The North Carolina State University Libraries has initiated a plan for acquisition and archiving of local government geospatial data resources for North Carolina. The initial plan calls for the acquisition of available data for fifty of North Carolina's one hundred counties. In addition, a directory of county data availability and relevant data contacts will be assembled for the entire state. The acquisition of data for the remaining counties as well as for cities, metropolitan planning organizations and councils of government will also be explored. Core data resources that are available from county governments frequently include: land parcel and assessment data; street centerlines; and digital orthophotography at resolutions of six inches to two feet. Additional data resources are often available for other infrastructure, physical, and cultural features. County geodata resources are typically managed by either the tax administration department or by a separate GIS unit or coordinator. Obstacles to data acquisition include: the reluctance of local agencies to distribute data; technical barriers to transfer of very large amounts of data; the absence of metadata or other data documentation; restrictions on redistribution; and the need to account for frequent updates to data resources. Long-term archival efforts will need to account for changes in media and file formats. The long-term stability of media formats is also an issue. The presentation will provide an overview of the NCSLJ Libraries data acquisition program to date.

On Friday, I attended a session devoted to a computer application devised to assist students in geography learn about map projection.Fritz Kessler, Dept. of Geography, Frostburg State University developed the software, which is available at http://www.fsu.umd.edu/dept/geog/faculty/kessler/fkmain.html.

Saturday was an elective workshop day during which I attended a morning field trip to Continental Aerial Survey. They demonstrated the process of aerial photography and the use of Global Positioning (GPS) to accurately relate positions and features on the ground with their corresponding photo images.They pointed out that since the implementation of the GPS they have found the old geodetic survey control markers to be extremely accurate.They demonstrated how topographic maps were created from the photographs using an image plotter.This is known as photogrammetry, where lines of equal elevation are plotted using stereo pairs of aerial photographs.Their most common request comes from quarry materials suppliers.After the flyover of a particular quarry stockpile, the surveyors then use the data to accurately estimate the volume of the stockpile.