Welcome to the International Cartographic Association
Welcome to the website of the International Cartographic AssociationGet to know the new ICA Executive Committee for the term 2023-2027
Welcome to the website of the International Cartographic Association
Get to know the new ICA Executive Committee for the term 2023-2027

Call for Papers: Coordinating Cartographic Collections

On 30 September 2021 the ICA Commission on the History of Cartography is organizing the online workshop “Coordinating Cartographic Collections”, in conjunction with the 12th Virginia Garrett Lectures on the History of Cartography (University of Texas at Arlington) and the Fall Meeting of the Texas Map Society.

The ICA Workshop, due to the varying international Covid19 situation and travel restrictions, will be an ONLINE EVENT. The 12th Virginia Garrett Lectures & Fall Meeting of the Texas Map Society, however, are planned as a HYBRID CONFERENCE from 1 to 3 October 2021 (in-person attendance and online streaming). Presenters and registered participants of the ICA Workshop will get FREE online access to this conference as well.

Call for Papers

All three connected events are exploring the incredibly diverse cosmos of maps in collections. The ICA Workshop invites personal and institutional case studies / best practice examples on the following topics (though other contributions will be considered as well):

  • collecting (trade and collector)
  • cataloguing
  • preserving
  • presenting (physical and digital)
  • access / user perspectives
  • managing (back office)

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 30 July 2021
Notification of acceptance: 13 August 2021
Guidance on abstracts: min. 200 words – max. 500 words, add a brief biographical note

Inquiries and submissions should be directed to:
Prof. Dr. Imre Josef DemhardtChair ICA Commission on the History of Cartography

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New book on the Barbara Petchenik Competition

The Spanish Ministry of Transports, Mobility and the Urban Agenda, through the National Geographic Institute of Spain and the Spanish Centre for Geographic Information, has published the book “The World drawn by children. Barbara Petchenik International Competitions 2017 & 2019 / El mundo dibujado por los niños. Concursos Internacionales Barbara Petchenik 2017 y 2019”. It has been released on the occasion of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science on the 11th of February 2021 and aiming to pay tribute to all women and girls dedicated to or interested in Geography and Cartography.

Furthermore, the organiser of these competitions, the International Cartographic Association (ICA), wished to dedicate this publication to the National Geographic Institute of Spain as a tribute to the 150th anniversary of its foundation back in 1870. Its bilingual (English/Spanish) digital version is available from today in the publication section of the Institute’s website. The printed version will be released soon.

The book has been produced by the National Geographic Institute of Spain and it has been published by the Spanish Centre for Geographic Information. It has been created thanks to the valuable contribution of the ICA Commission on Cartography & Children and the remarkable cooperation of the Spanish Society for Cartography, Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, which represents Spain at the ICA. However, above all, it could only come into fruition thanks to the wonderful drawings made by children competing in the 2017 and 2019 editions. It also features the pictures regards Barbara Petchenik’s biography accomplished by illustrator Santiago N. Fernández, on loan from the National Geographic Institute of Argentina.

Barbara Petchenik (1939-1992), American cartographer, is an extraordinary example in the task of bringing together science and values, i.e. she was the first woman to serve as Vice-President of the ICA, she was involved in several projects with an exceptional scientific output in the field of cartography, and she worked hard to make maps, her great passion, part of regular education from childhood.



Illustrated details about the life of Barbara Petchenik

There could be no better occasion than today, the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, to present the values that guide the international competition that is embodied in this book, in which the main characters are both the World drawn by children and the love for maps.

The Archive for the Barbara Petchenik Children Map Competitions is kept at Carleton University Library (Canada), and can be viewed at https://childrensmaps.library.carleton.ca/. The aims of this international competition are to promote creative representation of the world as seen by schoolchildren, to strengthen geographic and cartographic knowledge and to make participants aware of the world in which they live, favouring understanding and preservation.

The publication of the book also aims to promote the 2021 edition of this international competition, whose theme this time is “A map of my future world”. All Spanish children will be able to participate in this new competition. The Spanish Society for Cartography, Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, ICA’s representative in Spain, will receive the drawings and will select the six best national works, which will represent Spain in the international edition. The final decision will take place from 14 to 18 December 2021 in Florence (Italy), simultaneously with the celebration of the 30th International Cartography Conference.

Workshop on Adaptable Research Methods For Empirical Research with Map Users

The ICA Commission on Cognitive Issues in Geographic Information Visualization and the ICA Commission on User Experience are pleased to invite you an online workshop on Adaptable Research Methods For Empirical Research with Map Users on Thursday, 6 May 2021.

Everyone globally has been affected by the COVID-19 in one way or another. Most of us have probably had to make adjustments to planned research projects as a result of restrictions on mobility and interacting with people outside our own households.

Nevertheless, despite these challenges, people have been successful in undertaking research. We believe that there have probably been a number of creative solutions devised for running experiments that gather empirical data from people, and some of these solutions may be well worth preserving for use in the future.

Therefore we propose a workshop to share some of our collective experiences in doing this kind of work over the last 14 months. We hope to learn from each others’ successes and failures and contribute constructive suggestions for yet-to-be-solved problems presented by the situation.

Workshop format

We expect everyone attending the workshop to actively participate in the sharing and discussions. This could mean that you present a lightning talk about a problem you need help solving (we are looking at you, PhD students!), or it could mean you discuss an experience that didn’t work as you hoped/planned, or it could mean that you present a solution that worked well for you and that might help others.

We plan that the session will be relaxed and relatively informal as not all experiences may be easy to share in a standard, formal scientific presentation. For example, some experiences may be easier to communicate via demonstration. Therefore, we ask when you submit your abstract, you also specify how much time you would like and how you would like to spend your time.

Some possible options include:

  • Standard presentation
  • Demonstrating a technique or method you’ve devised
  • Facilitating a discussion about particular types of challenges you’ve wrestled with (to best do this, provide discussion points/questions that workshop participants can reflect on before the workshop);
  • Other creative uses of the time that you can negotiate with the workshop organisers – we are open to ideas!

Workshop Outcomes

We plan at a minimum to build a webpage to be hosted on the Commission website with a synthesis of the ideas presented at the workshop. It is hard to predict in advance if there will be sufficient material, but if it seems to be the case after the workshop, we suggest also the development of a collaborative paper to be submitted to the International Journal of Cartography.

Deadline for abstracts

We ask that you submit your abstract by 28 February 2021 (Anywhere on Earth) to this website.

We will use the ICA Abstracts template, which can be accessed at Copernicus. Note, you should NOT provide a paper – use only the abstract component of the template! Your abstract should be no longer than 500 words.

Schedule

Date(s): Thursday 6 May; additionally Friday 7 May (if demand is great enough).
Time: 22:00-2:00 (AUS), 20:00-0:00 (Beijing), 14:00-18:00 (CET), 13:00-17:00 (UK); 9:00-13:00 (Rio de Janeiro); 8:00-12:00 (East Coast US); 5:00-9:00 (West Coast US)

We have planned a half-day workshop on Thursday 6 May. If there is sufficient enthusiasm for participation based on the responses to the CFP, we have tentatively planned to extend the workshop to a second half-day on Friday 7 May.

There is no time of day that will perfectly suit all time zones, so we have tried to come up with a schedule that allows the greatest number of time zones to attend at least some of the workshop at an at least semi-civilised hour.

Cost

There is no cost for participation, but we ask that you register in advance by 31 March 2021 to support the logistical planning of the workshop. The registration link is available on the workshop website.

Workshop Platform

The platform we use will depend on registered numbers, but either Teams or Remo are being considered. We will advise the platform to all registered participants before the workshop.

Organizers

ICA Commission on Cognitive Issues in Geographic Information Visualization

  • Dr. Amy Griffin, RMIT University
  • Dr. Petr Kubíček, Masaryk University
  • Dr. Pyry Kettunen, Finnish Geospatial Research Institute (FGI, NLS)

ICA Commission on User Experience

  • Prof. Rob Roth, University of Wisconsin Madison
  • Prof. Luciene Delazari, Federal Univ. of Paraná
  • Dr. Zdeněk Stachoň, Masaryk University
  • Katarzyna Słomska-Przech, University of Warsaw

Series of Conversations around Maps and Stories

Sensibility Mapping of Rwandan Life Stories by Élise Olmed

The Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS) in collaboration with the Geomedia lab at Concordia University is organizing a series of conversations around maps and stories. These conversations will involve students, researchers, mapmakers, artists, and activists working at the intersection between maps and stories, and will aim to address two broad questions: What are the most pressing methodological, theoretical, technological, ethical and design challenges raised by the relationships between maps and stories? What might be the impacts of these relationships within the social, cultural and political spheres? This series of conversations will take place online and will be freely accessible.

List of conversations

Feb. 3, 2021 (12:00 to 13:30 Eastern) – Reflections on cartographic languages when collectively mapping possible worlds

  • Séverin Halder – Activist, geographer & co-editor of “This Is Not an Atlas”
  • Paul Schweizer – Geographer, popular educator & co-editor of “This Is Not an Atlas”
  • Pablo Mansilla Quiñones – Associate Professor, Institute of Geography. Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaiso.

Registration: https://concordia-ca.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAvcOuvpzMiG9GqsMlDlxEq_50w_qi20MVn?fbclid=IwAR0OkpwQTbOrT4q904C_5-qgBuavD-qZbrUN4upD1nALojbP4tLjd99KSqk

Feb. 25, 2021 (12:00 to 13:30 Eastern) – Listening

  • Anne Knowles – Historical geographer & professor of history at University of Maine
  • Margaret Pearce – Citizen Potawatomi Nation tribal member and cartographer

Registration: https://concordia-ca.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwkceCqpjgrHtB3rSdJ5TmXnPYef_NjPGTt?fbclid=IwAR0qMhXJplcAaI4znvDdHn6KI3R5Kb7C-ht9_gpjrH1i24cCgVgkFcTmzts

March 23, 2021 (14:30-16:00 Eastern) Weaving stories threads: An Indigenous Cartographic Engagement

  • Annita Lucchesi – Cheyenne & PhD student at the University of Arizona
  • Pualani Louis – Kanaka ʻŌiwi & Associate Researcher with UC Davis Native American Studies

Registration: https://concordia-ca.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUudOisrTgoEt0YDodiAdFuhqNf69gkwhQs?fbclid=IwAR3q-31EaaPzVaVTEfBvzmU_sN6UXuHEZzaYLicnZC9oL-NKsLTfbaO85Fk

April 8, 2021 (12:00 to 13:30 Eastern) – Mapping the Skin and the Guts of Exile’s Stories

  • Élise Olmedo – Banting Postdoctoral fellow at Concordia University
  • Sébastien Caquard – Associate Professor of Geography & co-director of the Center for Oral History and Digital storytelling (COHDS) at Concordia University

Registration: https://concordia-ca.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEtf-uhrTkpEtMbdfOcgBpXuAVF_QClEa2d?fbclid=IwAR3HnsR5XNGnmNg0-evexVyLoWVcm_hrd_N2OgQy6ZMlO9fSqMWqeiOap4Q

June 3, 2021 (12:00 to 13:30 Eastern) – Speaking (with) maps: A threefold map-talk on cartographic objects, narratives and migrancies

  • Tania Rossetto – Associate Professor of Cultural Geography & Co-convenor of the Mobility & Humanities Centre, University of Padua
  • Laura Lo Presti – Postdoc Researcher, University of Padua & ICOG Visiting Research Fellow, University of Groeningen
  • Giada Peterle – Lecturer in Literary Geography, University of Padua

Registration: https://concordia-ca.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZItfu2oqzksGdw9Pkjyz9NTp-3wlPOwdYZ-?fbclid=IwAR2CNO_5dzzXUNilSsesq1EBS4CPWDWTjH4mzcz7LqBvQMpWluiJf-yJWqQ

Invitation to the Barbara Petchenik Competition 2021

Dear friends and colleagues,

It’s a great pleasure and honor to announce the Official Call for the Barbara Petchenik Children’s Map Competition 2021.

This year there are no significant changes for the participants in the competition. The only one change is the new theme of the competition: A map of my future world (as selected by our colleagues from 17 countries).

All documents related to the organization of the next competition can be found here:

Please note: In June 2021, national coordinators will be invited to participate in an e-mail-based voting process to select the winning entries. Due to this, it is very important to send the names and e-mail addresses of the national coordinators to the Chair and Vice-Chair of the ICA Commission on Cartography and Children in the next months – otherwise we cannot ensure a direct contact for submitting the invitation.

For more detailed information about the competition, please visit the Petchenik section on the ICA website, the website of the Commission on Cartography and Children or their Facebook page.

Best regards

Carla Cristina R. G. de SENA
Chair, ICA Commission on Cartography and Children

Jose Jesus REYES NUNEZ
Vice-Chair, ICA Commission on Cartography and Children

Working Group on the History of ICA

Last year, the International Cartographic Association (ICA) celebrated its 60th anniversary. This milestone called for a professional approach to documenting and preserving records of our mature organisation and its rich heritage. In response, the ICA Executive Committee approved the formation of the ICA Working Group on the History of ICA at their meeting in Ghent in November 2019.

In brief, the Terms of Reference (ToR) focus on three broad areas:

  • ICA Archives – to build the Association’s archives and records
  • ICA Chronicle – to document ICA activities and achievements
  • ICA Hub – to provide support and expertise on matters relating to ICA

We are interested to hear from anyone who is willing to share their ICA archives and collections – documents, records, official correspondence, publications, photographs, conference materials, promotional brochures, and any other items of relevance. In particular, we are seeking your help with collating a full set of Minutes from the ICA General Assemblies. This task seems to be particularly challenging; we are currently missing documents from the:

  • 5th General Assembly held in Moscow in 1976 (we only have a brief report)
  • 7th General Assembly held in Perth in 1984
  • 8th General Assembly held in Morelia in 1987
  • 9th General Assembly held in Bournemouth in 1991

We would appreciate hearing back from anyone that could help us in completing the set.

Since the Working Group is still at its formation stage, we are looking forward to welcoming new members that can support our work, particularly in fulfilling Terms of Reference. If you are interested, please visit our website and get in touch.

Igor Drecki
Chair, Working Group on the History of ICA

Category: History of ICA
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Selection of a theme for the Barbara Petchenik Competitions 2021 & 2023

Every four years, the ICA Commission on Cartography and Children is responsible for the selection of a theme for the next two Barbara Petchenik Competitions. In 2016, the decision was practically automatic: we opted for supporting the International Map Year using the motto “We love maps” in the competitions organized in 2017 and 2019.

This year the commission decided to organize a voting process to select a new theme. First, members and colleagues were asked to propose themes for the competitions. In almost three weeks, 69 proposals arrived from 17 countries. An online voting slip was created with Google Forms and all the commission members, colleagues from other ICA commissions and interested people in general participated in the voting process from May 15 to June 15, 2020. The voting process was announced not only by e-mail for all the ICA commissions, but also on the Facebook profile of the commission to ensure a wider participation. In four weeks, 132 colleagues gave their votes to max. five themes. The theme that finished in the first place was “A map of my future world” with 41 votes. This is one of the themes submitted by Liqiu Meng, current ICA Vice-president, from the Technical University of Munich, Germany. Consequently, “The map of my future world” will be the theme for the next two competitions in 2021 and 2023.

The second place was occupied by “Mapping for Hope” (submitted by Alexander Kent, UK) with 29 votes and the third place by “The changing world” and “With a map I can…!” (sent by Giedré Beconyté, from Lithuania and the Argentine Center of Cartography respectively) with 26 votes.

The next step will be to officially open the Barbara Petchenik Competition 2021, sending the Call for the competition and other documents next September.

The Commission on Cartography and Children would like to express our deepest thanks to all the colleagues who submitted themes and to all who voted in the last four weeks.

José Jesús Reyes Nuñez
Commission on Cartography and Children, Vice-Chair

The voting process to select a theme for the Barbara Pechetnik Competitions 2021 & 2023 started

The ICA Commission on Cartography and Children invites all of you to participate in the voting process to select a theme for the Barbara Petchenik Competitions in 2021 and 2023. Colleagues and institutions of 17 countries proposed sixty-nine (69) themes during the last weeks. An online voting slip was created using Google Forms, which you can access on the following address:

https://forms.gle/wAWBCXPrbgRfLXov5

The submitted themes are listed in the same order in which they were sent for us. Please, give your vote to max. 5 themes and vote only once. The deadline for sending your votes is June 15, 2020. After finishing the voting process we will make public the selected theme with the results of the vote.

Feel you free to contact us on the following e-mail address if you have any question or doubt: jesusreyes@caesar.elte.hu

Thank you so much for your contribution!

News about the Barbara Petchenik Competition

Music video with maps submitted to previous competitions

Some days ago a Spanish ethnomusicologist, pedagogue and composer, Polo Vallejo (Pedagogy Professor in the Superior School of Music Reina Sofía, Madrid) asked for permission to use some of the map drawings made by children for the Barbara Petchenik competition in a short music video. His idea was to accompany maps made by children with a children xylophone piece of Carl Orff (German composer). Permission was given and the video is now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsetAhhMSNE

The video is used as a greeting card directed to music associations all over the world.

The ICA Commission on Cartography and Children would like to thank Polo Vallejo for this lovely pre-Easter gift!

Selecting a new theme for the next competitions

Next September the International Cartographic Association (ICA), represented by the Commission on Cartography and Children plans to announce the Barbara Petchenik Competition 2021. In 2016 we decided to support the International Map Year using “We love maps” as theme for the competitions in 2017 and 2019. Now it is time to select a new theme for the competitions to be held in 2021 and 2023. We asked by e-mail all the members and supporters of ICA Commissions, all the representatives of ICA member nations, all the representatives and members of sister organizations and all colleagues in general to propose themes for the next two competitions. The organizers of the competition are open to any theme that can be represented by children on their maps. As help, here we list some of the themes selected for previous competitions: “Save the Earth”, “Many nations, one world”, “Living in a globalized world” and “My place in today’s world”.

We would ask colleagues to send their proposals to the jesusreyes@caesar.elte.hu e-mail address at latest on May 15. After the deadline, the commission is going to organize a voting process on the web, asking colleagues to vote their preferred themes and according to the number of votes, we select only one theme for the Barbara Petchenik Competitions in 2021 and 2023.

If you wish to have more detailed information about the Barbara Petchenik Competition, please visit the sites: https://icaci.org/petchenik/, https://childrensmaps.library.carleton.ca/ or http://lazarus.elte.hu/ccc/2019icc/bpcrules2019.pdf

 

José Jesús Reyes Nunez
Commission on Cartography and Children, Vice-Chair

Workshop on Automatic Vectorisation of Historical Maps held as virtual conference

On 13th March, the Commission on Cartographic Heritage into the Digital had its workshop on the Automatic Vectorisation of Historical Maps. Due to the coronavirus situation the workshop had to be held online only. Despite the short time (the meeting ban at the hosting institution was announced only 3 days before the event) most authors managed to join the meeting. The workshop was streamed online, the discussion was realized in a chat group.

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