The
Annual Geographic Names Conference
and Training Workshop of the
Council of Geographic Names Authorities
in the United States
was held at the
Holiday Inn, Lady Bird Lake
Austin, TX
April 29-May 3, 2014
Council of Geographic Names Authorities 2014 Annual Conference
“Geographic Names: Our Past is Present”
Hosted by the
Texas Geographic Names
Committee
Richard Wade, Chairman
Claire DeVaughan, Conference Coordinator
T. Wayne Furr, Executive Secretary (COGNA)
The Texas Geographic Names Committee (TGNC) and the Council of Geographic Names Authorities (COGNA) hosted attendees to Austin, Texas for the annual COGNA conference-workshop on April 29-May 3, 2014 at the Holiday Inn on Lady Bird Lake (formerly Town Lake).
Attendees from a variety of complementary backgrounds shared their experiences, their expertise, and worked towards improving standardization practices across the Toponymic community. COGNA and the Texas Committee provided an exciting and diverse program ranging from educational presentations to discussions about best practices used to manage geographic names information.
The conference was open to the public for a registration fee which included all conference materials, welcome reception, and admission to all daytime conference sessions. Optional activities included the Friday evening banquet with Charles Frye as our speaker, The Saturday Toponymic Tour provided an educational outlook at the diversity of geographic names in the Texas Hill Country.
The theme for this year’s conference-workshop was Geographic Names: Our Past is Present. Participants were provided the unique opportunity to gain to:
Gain insight about the integration of geographic names with other geographic base data layers
Learn about name standardization policies at the Federal, state, and local levels of government
Resolve conflicts regarding naming procedures
The conference provided discussions about:
The authorities responsible for the decision about the officially recognized name
The potential for the naming process to change if Indigenous place names are within federally recognized Indigenous lands
Requirements needed to ensure that geographic names are harmonized across multiple geographic data layers
Impacts of geographic naming on emergency response
The Austin-based conference committee extended a big Texas welcome to lively and informative meeting.
Further information about the COGNA Conference-Workshop is available at http://www.tnris.org/cogna2014. We hope that you will consider joining us in Anchorage in 2015 for a lively and informative experience.