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NACIS News September 2026

Date posted: September 15, 2026

NACIS News: September 2026

Conference reminders

The NACIS annual meeting is October 21-24. Here are some reminders for attendees:

Register before October 7th to get an early-bird discount
There are still discounted rooms available at the conference hotel. We need to fill them by September 20th to meet our obligation to the hotel. If you have any issues when booking, please contact business@nacis.org and we’ll be happy to help.

LAST CALL:
Conference t-shirt pre-orders due Sept 21

This year, the official 2026 NACIS Conference t-shirt is available as PRE-ORDER only. This helps prevent us from ordering too few or too many shirts. Pre-orders are due September 21, and can be ordered when registering for the conference. We will order a very limited number of extras, but pre-ordering is the only way you can guarantee that you will get a shirt. These shirts are 100% cotton and printed by Shaky Hands Union Printing, based in Milwaukee. The front features a pocket with “NACIS” printed on the pocket, while the back features a larger logo. Sizes are unisex and range from small to 3XL.

If you already registered for the conference and did not pre-order a t-shirt, you can still order one by logging back into the EventSquid account you made when registering for the conference. If you aren’t able to pay for your t-shirt by September 21 but you would like one, please email the Shop Manager, Lily Houtman.

Dear NACIS Members,

The NACIS board is proposing an update to the society Bylaws after conducting a thorough review of them over the past year. We have undertaken this process for a number of reasons, most importantly to ensure the ongoing health and successful administration of our organization. There are a significant number of changes suggested – some quite minor (grammar, etc.) and some more substantial. The substantial changes are generally proposed to:

Provide clear policy where we determined the previous bylaws left risky holes
Revise existing policy to reflect the current operations of the society
Clarify language where misinterpretation could affect the intended meaning of the bylaw.

REVIEW THE CHANGES

We bring these suggested revisions to you ahead of the Annual Business Meeting, to be held on Thursday October 22, 2026 at 12:00 pm Central Time, so that you may have sufficient time to review and reflect on the suggested changes. Please note, for ease of reading and understanding the changes, the linked document presents the Bylaws in two formats: first showing all additions and deletions, then after that a ‘clean’ version with all suggested changes applied.

If you have any questions regarding the updated language of the Bylaws, please contact us at info@nacis.org.

Your NACIS Board

Call for proposals:
Mobile and responsive mapping special issue

Cartographic Perspectives is planning a special issue on Mobile and Responsive Cartography for the Winter 2027 issue. We are primarily seeking peer-reviewed research articles, narrative case studies, and position papers.

We encourage submissions on subjects such as mobile and responsive thematic mapping, user-centered research in mobile/responsive mapping, studies on cognition/perception in mobile maps, and more. A brief abstract or description of your project is due by November 20th. See our website for more details.

Civil War cartography competition

The Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College is pleased to announce the launch of a new national book award: the E. James Morton Award for Excellence in Original Civil War Cartography. The Morton Award seeks to encourage historians and publishers to think more creatively about how maps can illuminate complex stories—not only in military campaigns, but also in biographies, political history, and cultural and economic studies of the era.

The annual award will recognize the outstanding narrative book with original maps on the American Civil War, honoring both the author and the cartographer whose work most effectively integrates mapping into historical narrative. Submissions for the inaugural award cycle will close on March 1, 2027.

The winning author and cartographer will each receive a $1,000 prize, with formal recognition to take place at the Civil War Institute’s summer conference in 2027. Additional details, including submission guidelines and judging criteria, are available at mortonmapaward.com.