Minutes from CONAMS meeting at the Miami Map Fair, Feb. 4, 2017

Attendees: John Docktor – President CONAMS; Ralph Ehrenberg, Paulette Hasier – Library of Congress, G&M Division; Richard Pflederer – Williamsburg Map Circle; Tom Sander – Society for the History of Discoveries; Eliane Dotson, Jeffrey Katz – Washington Map Society; Dennis Gurtz – Fry-Jefferson Society of the Library of Virginia; Art Holzheimer – Chicago Map Society; Ron Grim, Jeremy Pool – Boston Map Society; Dianne & Boone Powell – Texas Map Society; Nick Kanas – California Map Society; Wes Brown – Rocky Mountain Map Society.

Rocky Mountain Map Society – The Society holds 8-10 meetings a year, and builds on having a lot of  people in the Rocky Mountain area who are interested in maps, including, for example, geologists and geographers.  The Society is over 25 years old.  A relatively new event is an annual “Map Month” at the Denver Public Library, with presentations on four successive Tuesdays in May addressing a common theme. Attendance has been 100-125 per lecture. (Regular RMMS meetings typically have attendance of 40-45.)  There are about 120 paying members, and 400-450 names in the email blast list. In 2018 Denver will be the host to SHD (Sept. 20-22). The actual meeting locale will be the Colorado School of Mines in Golden.

Boston Map Society – The Society has about one meeting per month (except for summers), mostly alternating between the Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library and the Harvard Map Collection.  Harvard has a new librarian, David Weimer, for its cartographic collections. The Society also puts out a newsletter 2 to 3 times per year (John Day, former BMS president, is the editor). The upcoming issue of the newsletter focuses on maps related to the Revolutionary War, with articles by Richard Brown and Peter Barber.  The Society has between 120 and 130 members; meetings typically attract 30 to 40 attendees.

California Map Society – The Society holds two meetings a year (one in Northern California; one in Southern California). Meetings typically have 50 to 100 attendees. Each meeting features 4 speakers (including student speakers).  Next meeting in the North is May 20, in conjunction with the Rumsey Center at Stanford, which will be held at the Rumsey Center.  The Southern California meeting will be held in the Fall of ’17.  The Society also hosts book talks, and has a newsletter. Membership is growing.

Texas Map Society - The Society holds two meetings a year. Every other year the Society hosts the Garrett Lectures. Next Spring’s meeting will be held at Washington-on-the-Brazos, where the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed.  The meeting’s focus will be on the 1836 Texas Revolution.  The Society faces challenges in attracting new leadership and in its marketing efforts.

Washington Map Society – The Society has about 390 members.  Monthly meetings are held at the G&M Division of the Library of Congress.  Lectures are now videotaped and are available for viewing by members at a member-only section of the Society’s web site. The Portolan is in the process of being scanned and made available online, for members only, on the Society’s web site.  Some past issues are already available; eventually all will be.  The Society also has a Facebook page with over 400 members.

Fry-Jefferson Society of the Library of Virginia – The Fry-Jefferson Society is the support society for the map library at the Library of Virginia. On April 29th the Vorhees Lecture will be held, the topic being “Richmond: Evolution of a City”, with several speakers and a related exhibition.

Society for the History of Discoveries – The next SHD meeting will be held Sept. 21-23 in Milwaukee.

Williamsburg Map Circle – The Circle has 65 paid members, and holds 4 to 5 meetings a year. The Circle does not have a single host institution; meeting locations are determined on a meeting-by-meeting basis.

Library of Congress (G&M) – Paulette Hasier, the incoming head of the G&M Division, noted that the blog and twitter feed from LC can be linked to from local map society web pages, and she encouraged our various societies to do that.

Minutes prepared by Jeremy Pool