The 2008 International Map Traders Association IMTA (Europe, Middle East & Africa) Conference and Trade Show was held this year at the famous Hotel Palacio, Estoril about 20 kms west of Lisbon on 28th February - 1st March.

The annual event attracts a good cross section of cartographic service companies, map publishers, data providers and print / paper suppliers with a total of 26 exhibitors including Lovell Johns (LJ). The LJ stand featured wallmap products including a Pacific Centred Political World Map and the new Primary Classroom Series.

Some 150 delegates enjoyed a full programme during the 3 day Conference from Thursday's Golf Tournament, a full and varied series of presentations / workshops over Friday and Saturday, culminating with the Annual Awards Dinner and entertainment on Saturday night - Sunday morning.

LJ's delegates Ben Hill and Howard Hudson were fully engaged in most of the activities during the extended weekend. Ben spending much of Saturday helping judge the various Atlas, Wallmap, Digital Data and Globe Award categories. Howard made a presentation topically linking Port Wine making with Cartography via 'The Map of the Douro Valley - Port Vineyards' . This map commissioned by one of the largest Port Wine suppliers in Portugal, The Symington Family Port Company has proven to be popular with visitors to the Douro Valley and locals alike.

Congratulations to Howard who continues LJ's long association within the IMTA organisation by agreeing to Chair IMTA (EAME) Technical Committee and join the IMTA Board.

Typically, the Core Strategy is accompanied by a ‘key diagram’ – an indicative map showing broad areas for development. However, the Government’s ‘Streamlining Local Development Frameworks’ consultation suggests that the Proposals Map could play a big part in all DPDs. It looks likely that Councils will be able to allocate sites as part of their Core Strategy not just in their Site Specific Allocations or Area Action Plans.

planvu from Lovell Johns is an off-the shelf solution for LDF mapping. It offers full navigation with pan, zoom and search functions; it allows links to the written statement and has updateable, dynamic map layers. With planvu you can publish maps from your GIS data and connect to e-consultation software. You can comply with Pendleton, PARSOL and the W3C whilst fully engaging with your stakeholders.

Call us on 01993 883161 to request a demo or visit www.planvu.co.uk

In support of this, Lovell Johns, demonstrated how PlanVu integrates into iNovem’s e-consultation software. With relatively little effort, the two companies have been able to integrate their software together to allow users to navigate seamlessly from planning policy documents to proposals maps and visa-versa.

This collaborative effort is non-exclusive. Both companies have a common interest in being able to provide this capability to shared and new clients alike and ensuring any interface requirements are simple and easy to implement.

For further information on PlanVu solutions for LDF requirements, please contact Symon Porteous, symon.porteous@lovelljohns.com on 01993 883161.

The Environment Agency recently commissioned Lovell Johns to produce a set of river guides in East Anglia to include the Nene, Great Ouse, Stour, rivers Welland and Glen, and the Ancholme.

The map guides were developed using Ordnance Survey data as a base map with additional cartographic features digitised. The resultant GIS database was cartographically styled using ESRI Maplex software. Each map sheet is a double sided guide to leisure activities (boating, fishing, walking, etc), facilities and restrictions along the river, and includes additional notes and diagrams. They are printed on water resistant material (Pretex) and will be given away at a river festival, to be held at St Ives in Cambridgeshire in August.

Following delivery of the first map, Paul Separovic of the Anglian Waterways Development Team stated that "we are very pleased with the finished Nene guides and have received numerous positive comments already". He went on to say about Lovell Johns that "it's been a steep learning curve, I am aware we would not be where we are now without your input".

The general situation on spatial information in Europe is one of fragmentation of datasets and sources, gaps in availability, lack of harmonisation between datasets at different geographical scales and duplication of information collection. These problems make it difficult to identify, access and use data that is available.

Awareness is growing at national and at EU level about the need for quality geo-referenced information to support understanding of the complexity and interactions between human activities, environmental pressures and impacts. The INSPIRE initiative is therefore timely and relevant but also a major challenge given the general situation outlined above and the many stakeholder interests to be addressed.

The initiative intends to trigger the creation of a European spatial information infrastructure that delivers to the users integrated spatial information services. These services should allow the users to identify and access spatial or geographical information from a wide range of sources, from the local level to the global level, in an inter-operable way for a variety of uses. The target users of INSPIRE include policy-makers, planners and managers at European, national and local level and the citizens and their organisations. Possible services are the visualisation of information layers, overlay of information from different sources, spatial and temporal analysis, etc.

The Directive came into force on the 15th May 2007 and now enters the Transposition Phase during which Member States have a period of two years to bring into force laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply to the INSPIRE Directive. Implementation will follow this phase.

Main Responsibilities
• First point of contact for our online map shop
• Deal with customer enquiries and processing clients orders
• Forward calls to relevant sales staff
• Provide marketing and administrative assistance to the sales and quotation managers
• Manage the collection and distribution of sales opportunities and conversions through the teams weekly sales report to Production and quarterly forecasts
• Pro-actively organise events (some overseas travel may be required)
• Other general responsibilities relating to the role

Requirements
• Excellent communicationand interpersonal skills are required.
• You must have an energetic and positive attitude
• You must be able to manage a busy workload and thrive working under pressure
• Some computer skills are required

The position is based in Long Hanborough, near Witney (on the train line from Oxford). This is a full time position with the hours being 8.30 to 5pm. You may be required from time to time to work outside of these hours to complete your duties. Overseas travel may be required occasionally for events.

E-mail your CV with details of your current salary to liz.adams@lovelljohns.com E-mail your CV and current salary details to liz.adams@mapsinternational.co.uk

Capable of displaying different categories of farm sites around the UK, the application uses Lovell Johns' MapVu mapping data of the UK from 1:200k through to 1:10k scales.

The Lovell Johns customer supplies its list of farm postcodes which is geo-referenced and stored in a database. A search by postcode will then retrieve and display any address and also link the information to site information and contact details.

In response to the outbreak of Avian Influenza in late 2005, one particular customer requested the software be capable of drawing and saving any Defra imposed exclusion zones that might be imposed on a suspect site.

'Disease outbreak and in particular Avian Influenza are serious issues for our customers and they need mapping to help them make quick informed decisions', said David Stephens, MD of Lovell Johns Limited.

The meeting will be attended by police and security managers with an interest in strategy and resource planning using web/GIS mapping tools to integrate and manipulate spatial and non-spatial information in a seamless database environment to visualise and query social patterns based on their location at a neighbourhood level. To find out more about Lovell Johns solutions or Community Policing, Public Information Access, Criminal Intelligence and modelling desktop GIS solutions, call our sales department on 01993 883 161

The show highlights trends and developments in the use of geographic data across all markets.

This year Lovell Johns will be presenting our GI and web services for local and national government, NHS and private sector spatial data and information management solutions. We will be demonstrating our risk and contingency solutions and use of GIS services to improve planning, logistics, public information and back office management systems.

With new additions to our range this year we expect a very busy show. MapVu Locate is a range of SVG and Flash based location mapping solutions for single or multiple company locations and linked information, service provision and territory management. MapVu Locate includes an LDF module for local government planners, a Regional module for local services, amenities and statistics, and a Healthcare module for Primary Care Trusts and healthcare professionals.

If you'd like to attend the conference or visit us at the exhibition, please contact Adam in the Sales office on 01993 883 161 or follow this link to the registration pages on the AGI website: www.agi.org.uk/conference/registration.asp

Lovell Johns had a large corner stand, which on arrival was found to have no lights or electricity. This was quickly sorted out and once the lights were on we had a hectic time. Sunday was surprisingly busy with many independent bookshops and traders taking the opportunity to visit the show out of trading hours. Monday and Tuesday were taken up with many meetings along with a healthy number of passing trade enquiries.

The other half of Excel was hosting the Professional Beauty Show which provided quite a distraction!

David Stephens
Managing Director,
Lovell Johns Limited

The conference is the one show where map people from across the world can get together and look for business opportunities between one another, and is attended by map producers, data providers, manufactures and distributors.

From Lovell Johns David and Ben attended the event.

The Atlas was produced by the MOSES Action of the IES Soil and Waste Unit, in collaboration with the European Soil Bureau Network.

Lovell Johns' were responsible for the creating the geological map plates and overall design and production of the Atlas.

More information is available on the European Commission: Joint Research Centre's website.