Ralph E. Ehrenberg, who served as Chief of the Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, from 1991 to 1998, was asked to return to the position effective September 6, 2011. Ralph's professional career has been associated with cartography for many years, primarily in management positions. After brief stints as an aerial photographer with the U. S. Navy and a cartographer-photogrammatrist with the DoD’s Aeronautical Chart and Information Center in St. Louis after graduate school, he led the cartographic and architectural archives division at the National Archives before joining the Library of Congress in 1979. Ralph served SHD as Treasurer from 1975-1979, as Vice President from 2003-2005, and as President from 2005-2007; he was made a Fellow of the Society in 2008. He is also founder of the Philip Lee Phillips Society, the Geography and Map Division’s public support group, A founding member of the Washington Map Society, he twice served as that group’s President. Ralph is the author of numerous books and articles pertaining to historical cartography and geographical exploration. The National Geographic Society published his most recent book, Mapping the World An Illustrated History of Cartography, in 2006.
On October 8, 2011, Dr. Mary Emily Miller, Frederica, DE, a life member of SHD, was inducted into the Delaware Maritime Hall of Fame, which honors those who have made a significant contribution to Delaware’s maritime heritage.
BRITISH ACADEMY AWARDS PRESIDENT’S MEDAL TO SARAH TYACKE: 'Lord of the Rings cartographer and ‘language made visible’ artist, Stephen Raw, has designed a new medal for the British Academy. The British Academy President’s Medal, unveiled for the first time at a special awards ceremony in London in November 2010, and is awarded “for signal service to the cause of the humanities and social sciences”. The first three recipients of this prestigious award are Dr Sarah Tyacke (formerly CEO of the National Archives), language learning advocate Professor Michael Worton and political journalist Peter Riddell. Sarah is a long-time member of the Society for the History of Discoveries and the Society congratulates her on this very special honor. See http://www.britac.ac.uk/news/news.cfm/newsid/418. Thanks to Tony Campbell for alerting us to this.
JIM WALKER – ARTICLE PUBLISHED. SHD member Dr. James V. Walker’s 28 page article “Henry S. Tanner and Cartographic Expression of American Expansionism in the 1820s” has been published in the Oregon History Quarterly Volume 111, number 4 (2010), of the Oregon Historical Society. The note at the Society’s website http://www.ohs.org/research/quarterly/current-issue.cfm says: “By 1845, the word Oregon was ubiquitous, fully embedded in the national consciousness, but that had not been the case only a couple of decades prior. Such transformation, Dr. James V. Walker argues, relied not only on diplomats and pioneers, but also on cartographers, including Henry S. Tanner. Walker investigates the expansionistic discourse that was instrumental in helping Americans conceive of national sovereignty that expanded from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific during the first three decades of the nineteenth century. Through an examination and analysis of cartographic literature, congressional debates, newspapers, and treaties, Walker illustrates the power of cartographic representation in constructing both the concept and definition of this region’s geopolitical identity as an American place called Oregon.” Jim hopes the article generates some discussion on how maps can disseminate information on political ideas and ideologies.
SHD Past Meeting Programs. Programs of many of the Society’s past meetings are available by clicking on the various years at the Society “Previous and Future Meetings” web page. Click here.
Founding members Thomas L. Goldstein and John Parker, and early members Sanford Bederman, Barbara Backus McCorkle, Norman J. W. Thrower, and Carol Urness have described the founding and development of the Society in remarks delivered at our annual meetings Click here to read those remarks.
NEW PUBLISHER FOR TERRAE INCOGNITAE
Maney is one of the few remaining independent journal publishers operating internationally. It publishes a significant number of journals that cover cultural and geographical history, including The Cartographic Journal, Survey Review, Folk Life, Dutch Crossings, Italian Studies, Hispanic Research Journal and Post-Medieval Archaeology. Its complete list of journals can be seen at www.maney.co.uk/journals, and more information can be found via the Maney History and Humanities Spotlight at http://maney.co.uk/history_and_humanities_spotlight .
Maney expects to develop Terrae Incognitae in a number of ways, with the provision of an online version and full back issue archive online for institutional subscribers, freely searchable electronic abstracts, inclusion in the CrossRef system of hyperlinked references, and a table of contents alerts service for all subscribers and readers.
The 2010 volume will also see a change in text, design and layout as required for online, as well as print production. We will be able to publish illustrations in colour online, enhancing the visual impact for readers. The cover will also undergo a redesign.
We look forward to working with the editorial team to continue the established tradition of publishing issues on subjects of international importance.
NOTICE OF INTENT TO DIGITIZE BACK ISSUES OF TERRAE INCOGNITAE
With the help of Maney Publishing, the Society for the History of Discoveries intends to scan and make available in electronic form the back issues of Terrae Incognitae. As a means of easy access to previously published papers, of which few subscribers will have copies, we expect this to be a considerable enhancement of the benefits of the institutional subscription.
Many of you will be familiar with the current procedure in which authors assign copyright (for both print and electronic publication) to the Society. This does not limit an author’s ability to reuse material, but ensures that Maney, on our behalf, can protect the copyright internationally. The papers we published previously, in our back issues, were not administered in this way, nor was permission sought to obtain electronic rights. For earlier issues, such a form of publishing was never conceived. It would exceed the resources available to the Society to identify all the authors who have previously contributed to Terrae Incognitae and obtain their (or their Estate executor where an author is deceased) permission to republish their work electronically. In any case, we are very doubtful that the addresses that we had at the time of publication are still current.
We are therefore writing this notice to ask for any authors who object to the proposed policy to let us know as soon as possible. We think it will be a pity, but if the permission, which we will be taking as given, is withdrawn, we will reluctantly omit their work from the scanned back archive. This will inevitably distort the record to a certain extent, but we will respect the decision.
We expect this notice will be seen and read by most people involved in the activities of the Society, and we would be grateful if you could draw it to the attention of all your colleagues. We will be proceeding with this scanning project in the next few months, and need to ensure that notice of our intentions is disseminated widely.
Marguerite Ragnow Editor, Terrae Incognitae
Thanks to late President Eric Wolf’s excellent bookkeeping, you can find within this SHD website a full listing of those who serve now and have served in the past as SHD Officers (that includes Presidents, Vice Presidents, Secretary-Treasurers and Council Members) and Editors of Terrae Incognitae.
