The National Library of Wales and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Wales come together once again to organize the annual Carto-Cymru cartographic symposium.

Organizers say this year’s theme, “Cartography in Megabytes”, explores how computer-generated cartography is changing the way maps are produced, used and stored and what this means for those who hold and store this information. available to the public.

The free event on May 20 is the sixth in the series held since 2016 and this year’s symposium will once again be held online, opening it up to audiences around the world.

The speaker program starts with Jason Evans, Head of Open Data at the National Library of Wales, who will talk about the “decolonisation of Welsh cartography” and how Welsh users of Openstreetmap and Wikidata have worked to save Welsh language place names and why it is important to do so.

He will reflect on a recent Welsh Government-funded project, led by the National Library of Wales, to combine these two datasets to improve Welsh-language mapping services.

It will also look at the potential of crowdsourced data to empower Welsh speakers and ensure they have equal access to digital map-based services.

This will be followed by a presentation by Jon Dollery, Mapping Officer at the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historic Monuments in Wales.

In his talk, he will explore the types of spatial data that are currently being captured and how they are used in the historic environment sector and the opportunities that new developments can provide.

Preservation

Later, Dr Gethin Rees, Senior Curator of Digital Mapping at the British Library, will describe the steps the six legal deposit libraries have taken to ensure that digital maps published in the UK are available for current generations. and future.

Sally McInnes, Head of Unique and Contemporary Content at the National Library of Wales, will describe the library’s approach to preserving born-digital content, and how this fits into the library’s new strategy: a library for the Wales and the world.

To close the day, Dr Sarah Higgins, Lecturer in Information Studies at Aberystwyth University, will close the day by discussing a project undertaken in partnership between Aberystwyth University, the Royal Commission and the National Library to develop an AI-enabled trusted digital repository for Wales. .

Organizers say this year’s symposium promises to be an exciting day with the chance to hear about some cutting-edge projects in the field.

Tickets are free and can be obtained from the events page and you can find out more about the presentations here: