An e-mail from Humphrey Southall concerning a workshop in 
Florence. Please forward to any colleagues who may be able to 
help.

Thanks,

Paul Ell

========================================================================
Proposed Historical GIS Workshop;				Please post
to other
Call for expressions of interest:
	relevant lists.

	           MAPPING EUROPE'S BOUNDARIES AND BORDERS

A wide range of information about the past relates to administrative areas,
from nation states down to those covering individual villages, which either
no longer exist or have had their boundaries greatly changed.  Without
detailed information on those boundaries, the information is difficult to
interpret;  and without any locational information it is impossible.  In
the past, such information about locations and boundaries would have been
recorded in paper form as a map, but increasingly it is stored on computer
in the form of a Geographical Information System.

Most European countries have a computerised record of modern boundaries,
and sometimes these are pressed into service in analysing historical data.
However, systematic records of past boundaries are less common, especially
in computerised form.  Such computer systems exist for some Scandinavian
countries, and a major GIS recording the changing boundaries of the
individual parishes of England and Wales (c. 15,000 units) is under
construction (for information about that project, see
http://www.geog.qmw.ac.uk/hgis).  These countries benefit from having
external borders which largely follow coastlines, and which have
consequently been stable over many centuries.  Elsewhere in Europe,
national borders have changed greatly even within the present century, and
in consequence strictly national projects to record historic boundaries
have major problems in both defining what geographical area they are
concerned with and locating relevant record, which may be in other
countries.

Following on from a succesful workshop more generally concerned with
historical GIS, organised in Florence in 1994 by the Association for
History and Computing, we are applying to the European Science Foundation
for support for a 2 or 3 day workshop to be held next year, again in
Florence and most probably in June.  The objective would be to share
experience of large scale boundary mapping projects, rather than historical
GIS as a whole, and to explore the potential for future collaboration.

WE ARE LOOKING FOR POSSIBLE COLLABORATORS TO JOIN US IN THIS PROPOSAL, AND
ARE CONCERNED THAT THE MEETING SHOULD INVOLVE AS MANY EUROPEAN COUNTRIES AS
POSSIBLE.

The meeting would be limited to 20 participants, and in general we would
expect not more than two participants from any one country.  We are
therefore seeking those best qualified to take part, but recognise that the
extent of existing research varies greatly from one country to another:
from some countries we would expect representatives of completed GIS
projects, but from other we are seeking those with projects in progress, or
those who would like to create such a system.  We expect the meeting to be
as much concerned with historic sources as with GIS technology, so many of
the participants may be HISTORIANS OF CARTOGRAPHY.  Similarly, one of the
most obvious uses of digitised boundary data for the past is to analyse
statistics gathered by historic censuses and other social surveys, so some
participants may be DEMOGRAPHIC HISTORIANS who NEED a historical GIS.

At this stage, we are seeking simply expressions of interest and an
indication of WHY you are interested:  have you built a GIS?  are you
planning one? are you an expert on sources?  We would be grateful if this
message could be passed on to other people and lists likely to be
interested, and we would also be pleased to hear about researchers who
should be contacted.  NB this will not be a general meeting on historical
GIS, and we are not seeking researchers concerned with archaelogical data,
urban form, individual villages etc.

Applications under the ESF "Exploratory Workshops in the Humanities 1999"
programme must be submitted by May 31st, with a decision in November.  If
the application is succesful, the funding would cover all the accommodation
and travel costs of the participants.  For more details of the scheme see
http://www.esf.org/hp/call99.htm.  The meeting will be limited to European
countries, but NOT to members of the European Union;  eastern European
countries are most definitely included.

PLEASE SEND EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST AS SOON AS POSSIBLE

(Reply to Humphrey Southall)

Humphrey Southall (Queen Mary College, University of London)
Michael Guerke (European University Institute, Florence)


========================================================
Dr. Humphrey Southall,
Reader in Geography,
Department of Geography,
Queen Mary and Westfield College,
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON,
Mile End Road,
London E1 4NS,  ENGLAND

Direct Line:  0171-975-5413
Dept. Fax:    0181-981-6276


--- End Forwarded Message ---


_____________________________________________
Dr Paul S. Ell
Director
The Centre for Data Digitisation and Analysis
Department of Sociology and Social Policy
The Queen's University of Belfast
Belfast
BT7 1NN

E-mail: [log in to unmask]
WWW: http://www.qub.ac.uk/cdda/
Phone: +44 (0)1232 273408
FAX: +44 (0)1232 320668
___________________________________________




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