***NOTE: I don’t want to facilitate this as I don’t have the mapping experience, I am just interested in this area***
I would like to see a session please on how you could use maps (with layers of information) to explore an Australian historical debate/event that is spatial/locational in nature (on Saturday not Sunday as I can’t attend on Sun). Perhaps Paul Hagon could lead this and Tim Sherratt, being a historian, could identify a suitable example?
Check out this link as an example – examining what happened on the Battle of Gettysburg spatially (via a 3D model of the landscape using contour plans) actually proved finally, after years of debate amongst historians, that General Lee lost the battle because he lacked crucial visibility of key areas of the battlefield.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/history/looking-at-the-battle-of-gettysburg-through-robert-e-lees-eyes-136851113/
I am also interesting in talking about mapping, especially to share stories about a collection dispersed over several locations. Has anyone had experience using for example QR codes? Do people actually use them? What other technologies might work that are cheap and easy to use?
Have you had a look at Neatline? Lots of great examples on their demo page.
I haven’t delved into this yet but I’ve been collecting websites that may be useful. The Geospatial Historian website has introductory lessons in GIS for historians in a similar vein to the Programming Historian. The Historical GIS Clearinghouse and Forum may also be a useful resource. The University of Virginia’s Spatial Humanities may also have useful stuff for us.
for getting started with GIS I would totally recommend OSGeoLive http://live.osgeo.org/