Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) GIS Conference 2023 -  Virtual

Wednesday, November 8, 2023 #BtaaGisConf2023

Welcome to the BTAA GIS Conference 2023

Keynote Speaker: Katie McDonough, Alan Turing Institute

The Conference Planning Committee is pleased to announce Katie McDonough as the 2023 BTAA GIS Conference Keynote Speaker, presenting "Reading Maps: Making, Searching, and Interpreting Text on Maps".

Abstract:

Machine learning methods are transforming the ways that anyone can interact with map collections. Using the results of a computer vision pipeline to understand past places at scale comes with new challenges and opportunities. The Machines Reading Maps project has worked with partners at the Library of Congress, the National Library of Scotland, the British Library, and also the David Rumsey Map Collection to create datasets of the text on large collections of digitized maps. This talk explores the results of the Machines Reading Maps project to date including our work in progress to, on the one hand, visualize and analyze the results for historical research, and, on the other, use text on maps data to improve map collection discovery.

Bio:

Katie McDonough is a Lecturer in Digital Humanities at Lancaster University, and recently a member of Living with Machines and UK PI of Machines Reading Maps. She works at the intersection of social and intellectual history and the history of science and technology. She uses computational methods to translate large collections of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European texts and images, maps in particular, into data that historians can interpret. Her current projects explore Enlightenment discourses of geographic knowledge, the politics of highway construction in rural France, and the impact of railway infrastructure on nineteenth-century British communities. At The Alan Turing Institute, she chairs the Computer Vision for Digital Heritage Special Interest Group.

Schedule (see conference agenda for further details)

ANYTIME - Map Gallery

BTAA GIS Conference 2023 Planning Committee: