California Map Society Spring Conference 2026 (Northern California) (20 Jun 2026)

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Please join us for the Spring Conference of the California Map Society on June 20, 2026, held at the David Rumsey Map Center at Stanford University and online via Zoom (link forthcoming). The day will begin with a CMS business meeting at 10:15 am, followed by welcome remarks and presentations beginning at 10:45.

Registration

Please register on the Stanford University Libraries site. If you previously registered via the California Map Society site, your registration will be transferred. Thank you.

Agenda

CMS Business Meeting

10:00 am to 10:15 am Doors Open

10:15 am to 10:45 am CMS Business Meeting

Morning Session

10:45 am to 10:55 am Welcome Remarks

10:55 am to 11:25 am Tom Paper: The Mistakes On Maps

Mistakes on Maps will be a visually immersive journey through 20 historical maps, each featuring a fascinating flaw. Were these errors accidents, ambition, propaganda or fear of empty space? Along the way, see how trade, empire, faith and imagination bent geography.

11:25 am to 11:55 am Matthew Nachamkin: Filling in the Blanks: GeoGuessr and the Future of Mapping

Matthew’s fascination with mapping began with a video game, called GeoGuessr, which drops you somewhere on Earth using Google Street View and asks a deceptively simple question: where in the world are you? That question, it turns out, opens up something much bigger: a window into how the modern world is being mapped, and what it means that so many places are only now being seen for the first time.

This talk will reveal how AI, drones, and Google's camera cars are pushing the boundaries of mapping technology, reaching places that have never before appeared on a map, from remote wilderness to interior spaces.

12:05 am to 1:25 pm Lunch

Lunch is on your own. Coupa Cafe is located just outside the East Wing Entrance of the Green Library. Online ordering is available here.

Afternoon Session

1:30 pm to 2:00 pm Zoe Dilles: US Federal Lands Records Research

The General Land Office Records Database (GLO Records) contains thousands of land records — maps, surveys, field notes, and patents — that document a multifaceted history of the American West and beyond. Zoe will cover Californian stories from this rich archive of land title and land use as well as tips on using this publicly accessible resource.

2:00 pm to 2:30 pm Edward Lanfranco: Forbidden City Cartography

While starting to catalogue his personal collection of Beijing maps in 2025, Sinologist Edward C. Lanfranco stumbled upon a noteworthy subsection of holdings devoted to one particular place: the Chinese capital’s world renowned Palace Museum. This is a follow-up to an essay on the subject published in the May 2026 issue of our magazine, Calafia.

2:30 pm to 3:00 pm Jayne Kilander: You Are Here: Transit Cartography and Spatial Identity

With You Are Here, Jayne will discuss the role of transit maps in representing, impacting, and imagining the spaces they depict. You Are Here discusses the legitimizing impact of established cartographic languages, the way that mapping can empower or erase communities and imagine new futures for the places we travel to and from.

3:00 pm to 3:10 pm BREAK

3:10 pm to 3:40 pm Josephine Arader: The Shaping of California Through Maps, 1846 -- 1873, A 27-Year Cartographic Transformation

This presentation examines four maps of California produced between 1846 and 1873 to illustrate one of the most rapid regional transformations in modern history. In just 27 years, California shifts from a sparsely mapped northern province of Mexico to a fully surveyed and infrastructurally integrated American state. The maps Josephine has chosen provide a concise visual record of how quickly a landscape can be redefined when political change, resource discovery, and technological expansion converge.

3:50 pm to 4:25 pm Julie Sweetkind-Singer: Spatial Mapping at Stanford: Mapping the Past to Get to the Present

Over the past 25 years, Stanford Libraries has become a leader in providing spatial information and technologies to not only the Stanford campus, but to scholars and the general public around the world. Julie will walk us through this history, from the first grant to scan materials from the Stanford Geological Survey, to finding hidden map treasures in the basement of the Mitchell Earth Sciences building, scanning unparalleled Bay Area map collections, building the David Rumsey Map Center, and creating digital resources, interfaces, and tools to expose content and make it easier to use.

4:30 Exit the Rumsey Map Center

California Map Society upcoming events

California Map Society Spring Conference 2026 (Northern California) (20 Jun 2026)