The Spring 2006 issue of the Canadian Cartographic Association’s scholarly journal, Cartographica, is now out. It focuses on cybercartography and in particular looks at the work that the Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre in Ottawa. In fact, all of the contributors to this particular issue of Cartographica have some association with the GCRC.

The GCRC’s self proclaimed focus is “cybercartography and high resolution remote sensing for surveying and mapping and natural resources applications.” Cybercartography it defines as “the organization, presentation, analysis and communication of spatially referenced information on a wide variety of topics of interest and use to society in an interactive, dynamic, multimedia, multisensory and multidisciplinary format.” The centre takes a very scholarly and theoretical approach to this topic and provides a breakdown of the elements in cybercartography. Lest you think that the GCRC is only talking about web mapping, think again. When it speaks of cybercartography it is talking about “multisensory” maps that employ a wide range of multimedia, is highly interactive and covers a wide range of topics.

The GCRC has a number of what look like interesting examples of cybercartography, including the Cybercartographic Atlas of Antarctica (links to documents and presentations but not the actual atlas) and the Cybercartographic Atlas of Canada’s Trade with the World. Sadly, a couple of screenshots are all there seems to be at the moment.