Proceedings of the Seminar on Electronic Atlases and National Atlas Information Systems in the Information Age: Held at the University of Iceland, Reykjavik, August 4–7, 1998

Summary

These proceedings document the ninth meeting of the ICA Commission on National and Regional Atlases, held at the University of Iceland in Reykjavík on 4–7 August 1998. Twenty participants presented eighteen papers on electronic atlases and national atlas information systems. The foreword identifies reports on national atlas developments in Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Poland, Russia, and Spain; commercial mapping tools and digital production; publication across different media; and links among national atlases, geospatial data infrastructures, Internet dissemination, and public data access. Other topics included atlas metadata, the National Atlas of the United States as an interagency portal, and collaborative checking of the Encarta World Atlas. The concluding visible paper argues that modifying or extending metadata standards with fields for atlas functions and intended uses would support systematic documentation and Internet access. Its Cartographic Meta-Information Tool (CMIT) supports entry, retrieval, and management of metadata, with the primary aim of describing and studying electronic atlases. The volume also commemorates Icelandic geography professor and seminar organizer Gylfi Mar Gudbergsson, who died shortly before the meeting; both the seminar and proceedings were dedicated to him.