NACIS 2024

How to Write a Cartography Tutorial
Heather Smith, Esri
I’ve been writing cartography tutorials at Esri for almost six years. I’d like to share some of the methods, tricks, and principles that I’ve learned and employed over that time, including:
1) How to keep a tutorial short without sacrificing learning objectives.
2) How to go beyond button-clicking and explain how to make decisions.
3) How cartography skills translate to writing skills. (How becoming a better writer made me a better cartographer and vice versa.)

Cartography as Spatial Information Practices
Jack Swab, University of Kentucky
Definitions of cartography typically revolve around the construction and study of visual representations of geographic phenomena. In this presentation, I add to this definition by advancing the idea of cartography as the study of spatial information practices. Understanding how individuals find, evaluate, and use maps (and other forms of spatial information) is critical to advancing both the construction and study of maps. Although aspects of a spatial information practice exist in cartography currently—such as UI/UX or wayfinding research—by more readily centering a pluralistic view of spatial information practices we can expand cartography beyond the study of the visual.

Changes You Can Make to Your Workflows to Make More Accessible Maps
Vanessa Knoppke-Wetzel, GreenInfo Network
At GreenInfo Network, we have spent time in the last few years making changes to our interactive production workflows to improve accessibility in our web products, and we also continue to create accessible print maps for our clients and partners. I will share some of what we have learned about accessibility design for the web from the last few years, as well as share out tips and tricks from our experience with print products as well.

Creating an Organizational Cartography Guide
Gray McKenna, Washington State Department of Natural Resources
The National Audubon Society is a hemisphere-wide conservation organization that is known for its strong visual identity. Many Audubon employees are GIS users who regularly produce maps for outreach, planning, and advocacy. However, until recently, there were no Audubon-specific resources for designing maps. To address this need, we created a Cartography Guide using ArcGIS Hub. This guide empowers users of all skill levels to create high-quality, accessible maps that integrate Audubon’s visual identity. This presentation will cover how we created this guide to be responsive to our users’ wide range of needs, and the impact this guide has had on Audubon’s cartographic communications.

A Retrospective on a Career in Museum Mapping and GIS
Daniel Cole, Smithsonian Institution
For the past 39 years, I have served as the Smithsonian's cartographer. I started working with the Anthropology department at NMNH, researching, designing and creating maps for the Handbook of North American Indians and related work. In 1990-91, I moved to serving the entire Smithsonian for building GIS at the Institution while also providing cartographic work for any staff needing it for their publications and work in science, art, and history. Since 1999, I have also been involved with exhibits’ staff as well having contributed maps and geospatial data displays for over 20 exhibits in 7 museums, the Folklife Festival, SI Archives, and SITES. This presentation will review my past and present work until my retirement in December 2024.