Scattered Links – 9/6/2008 (Map Edition)

The Washington Post ran an article on the separate efforts of Dan Alexander Hawkins and Dan Bailey to map historical Washington. In the words of the article’s author, “The two men came to their fascination with Washington’s history by very different paths – pencils vs. pixels – yet sometimes their goals appear nearly identical.” The article is well-written, and offers a real glimpse into the rewards and challenges of historical mapping, whether digital or analog. Also, I really need to get a tour of UMBC’s Imaging Research Center.

Meanwhile, the University of Richmond’s Voting America project has been getting some play in the blogosphere. I have not had the chance to fully play around with it, but Sterling Fluharty at PhDinhistory has reported problems when testing the site for accuracy compared to separately compiled statistics. I’d be interested to see if this issue gets resolved.

Finally, on a non-history note, if anyone likes beautiful infographics and maps, take a look at Aaron Koblin’s Flight Patterns. Koblin’s graphics of North American air traffic patterns appeared in Wired magazine and are very well-done. Be sure to not only look at the images, but watch the accompanying animations as well (my favorite is the 3-D blobular).