H-Maps - An Email List for Early Maps

I am very pleased to say that the International Society for the History of the Map has sponsored the creation of a new international and multilingual email list, to foster communication among everyone interested in early maps. [Clarification: I use, like many others, “early maps” to mean any map that is no longer current, whether one made last year, or one made hundreds or thousands of years ago, whether print or digital or digitally modified.] The list, H-Maps, is hosted by the H-Net community. The list went live on 24 October 2019, through the wonderful efforts of Jordana Dym, ISHM Chair. As of the morning of 25 October it already has 140 members.

This list will go much of the way to replace the oft-lamented maphist listserv. It will not be exactly like maphist, however. All posts to H-Maps are delivered to your email inbox, either individually or as a digest (daily, weekly). All posts are moderated, so that they are not immediately distributed. The moderators also review other H-Net lists and share related items to H-Maps (including announcements of conferences, fellowships, etc.).

I am increasingly unhappy with FaceBook (pragmatically, functionally, and philosophically), so I hope to be able to shift announcements of new postings here at mappingasprocess.net to H-Maps and suspend/delete the FB feed. When I do make the change, I’ll make a separate announcement.

Instructions about how to subscribe and post to H-Maps are here: https://networks.h-net.org/node/4879599/discussions/5130718/announcement-introducing-h-maps-network-about-making-circulation

Note: Some of the older members of the map history community will have fond memories of maphist, the old open listserv that died a death when the hosting university retired the server without replacing the functionality. Some people out there have been seeking to recreate maphist and I dare say they will be displeased that H-Maps is not exactly the same as maphist. However, it is impossible to recreate an open listserv without oening oneself up to spammers, trolls, and other bottom feeders. Indeed, maphist was already suffering from those problems, which is why no-one has been willing to restart an open listserv (and why I had long since ended my own subscription). Those of my colleagues who have been bending my ear about recreating maphist should not start bending my ear now that H-Maps is not the same!