Yep - my main is the herbalist, an alt, with screen to the left of the main (I'm running a 5-screen array), is the miner. The mini-map for the alt is in the top right of the alt's sceen, which means it's right next to the top left of my main's screen - in other words I can monitor it while still watching my main's screen.
Additonally I use the gatherer mod and set it to display mining nodes on my main's mini-map as well, just for redundancy.
You only need the mini map for two gathering professions (herb & mining), so it works quite well. Would be a bit harder for someone running multiple sessions on once PC though...

Cheers,
Stealthy