It is my pleasure and honor to have the opportunity to write on behalf of NACIS as its President. I attended my first NACIS Annual Meeting in 2005, while working on my Master’s degree at Penn State. Since that time, I have never missed a NACIS meeting. What has made it easy for me to stay engaged with this community is the chance to work with so many people who share a passion for mapmaking. I am still amazed that I have had the chance to serve in a leadership role with this organization. Thank you for allowing me that opportunity.
The NACIS community is thriving. Its reach and diversity have never been better. Our membership is growing, interest in the Annual Meeting is reaching historically high levels, and we are able to provide more support than ever for students and professionals to attend. NACIS also continues to offer the only open access cartography journal with Cartographic Perspectives. These are all incredible accomplishments, made possible by everyone who has ever taken part in the Society’s activities, including by presenting their work at the Annual Meeting, publishing in Cartographic Perspectives, serving on the NACIS Board of Directors, or representing cartography in their workplace, classroom, or community.
In October, 2016 the NACIS community came together in Colorado Springs to learn from one another at our Annual Meeting. We were fortunate to have keynotes by Kirk Goldsberry and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, providing provocative and gripping messages about the power of creativity, rhetoric, and critical thinking in cartography and the realms with which it often overlaps. More than 100 presentations were submitted for consideration, with topics crossing the full spectrum of art, science, technology, and the societal dimensions of cartography. The most frequent feedback we hear about the conference is that people wish it were possible to see every single session.
We’ve begun to address that recently by launching the first-ever live video feed of NACIS. During the 2016 meeting, we were able stream and record Practical Cartography Day. NACIS members anywhere in the world were able to tune in and watch the presentations live, and the recorded videos were made available to the general public about a month after the conference. For 2017 we went even further, and live streamed and recorded the entire conference. As in 2016, NACIS members were able to enjoy the live streaming feature as a member benefit, while the recorded sessions will be posted for public consumption a few weeks after the conference concludes.
For 2017, NACIS Vice President Fritz Kessler and Vice President-Elect Ginny Mason worked hard to bring together another exciting Annual Meeting, this time in Montréal, Quebec. NACIS ventured to Canada for the first time since 1994, when we met in Ottawa. This journey northward was long overdue, and we are glad to have had the chance to make new connections in Montréal.
A tremendous amount of work is done each year by the volunteers who serve on the NACIS Board. I would like to thank everyone who contributes their time and energy to serving this community. If you have an interest in taking your commitment to NACIS to a new level, please let us know. We are always in need of new ideas, new voices, and new energy to propel our work forward.
Take some time to explore the contributions in this issue of CP. In the peer-reviewed article section, you will find a description of how a wizard can be used as a tool to help novice cartographers produce better thematic maps. The cartographic collections piece profiles an exhibition of copper plates that were used to print topographic maps of Minnesota in the early 1900s. In the practical cartographer’s corner, you will find an exploration of the limits of QGIS and ArcGIS Pro’s capabilities for producing unclassed choropleth maps. visual fields presents a series of stitched landscapes, some of them multiscale. Finally, this issue’s book reviews evaluate books on cartography and navigation, cartographic curiosities and getting to know ArcGIS Pro.
Anthony Robinson
NACIS President