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Looking Back on a Great Semester...

Meet the Faces: 
Last GIS Library Instruction: Nursing PhD Course Position: Map Librarian - University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Map Librarian - University of Tennessee, Knoxville

"We are seeking a creative, user-oriented professional to serve as Map Librarian and subject liaison for Geography."

This really seems like a great job as there appears to be a nice balance between all of the aspects of map/geospatial librarianship. From user consultation, to general reference duties, to FGDC metadata maintenance, to collection development, to outreach, to faculty liaison, and a blending of traditional cartographic materials and geospatial. I see so much potential for this position, and I definitely encourage interested librarians to apply.

The minimum requirements include an an MLS which I endorse entirely, as well as "knowledge of map librarianship and the application of GIS services in libraries." The preferred requirements include a "degree in geography or related field and experience using GIS software (ArcGIS)."

Here are some snippets:The minimum salary is set at $ 42,000 which I consider extremely reasonable considering the cost of living in Knoxville. A well qualified applicant may be able to push upwards to $ 50,000.
Posted by mapz at 4/26/2006 08:18:00 AM No comments: 
From Sample Points to Attractive ArcGlobe Image: Not So Easy

Here's the situation:
Biology professor needs a 3D map of the US, where the z-values represent particular species richness as opposed to the actual elevation of the terrain. The professor (and her GRA) came during my office hours with a delimited text file containing sample lat/long points along with the associated richness values.

Here's a quick shot of the result: How many hours I spent on this:
Too many. At least 10 hours over the last month.

How I justify spending so much time on this project:
This is my first interaction with this biology professor, and I really, really want the professor to leave with a favorable view of the library's GIS services. I also worked closely with the professor's GRA, and I try to always take advantage of those teachable moments.

How I finally accomplished this task:
My first thought was that this would be a super-easy project. Unfortunately, this was not the case. This is probably due to my lack of experience working with the 3D functions of ArcGIS 3D Analyst/ArcGlobe/ArcScene. After this project, this should no longer be the case.
Here are the steps (from my notes):

What I plan to do with this next:
Why, develop a workshop of course. Keep your eyes peeled for a good workshop on these techniques planned for Fall 2006 semester. If the professor allows me to use the data points, this might really make some inroads into closer connections with he Biology department.

What about Google Earth?:
I would have to create a Tin (which is no problem) and then convert the Tin to KML using Arc2Earth. If I can find a free morning this summer (after finals...), I will compare how the elevation renders compared to ArcGlobe.
Posted by mapz at 4/24/2006 07:29:00 PM 5 comments: 
Spatial Technology Blurs the Virtual & the Real

Imagine driving down the street and your in-car navigation systems tells you, in a soothing Kit voice:What we are beginning to see here is a breakdown between the border separating the virtual and the reality. And the critical technology breaking these borders down are geospatial technologies.

Remember the news reports of that French guy who crashed his car because he followed his GPS instructions? In this story, the GPS unit was directing the French guy to a hotel and instructed him to make an immediate u-turn. This is a classic case of how spatial technologies enabled virtual information (street network, GPS coordinates, and hotel locations) to direct the actions here in the real world. How far away are we from giving navigation devices actual driving privileges? Not very far at all.

Let's take a look at the state of things. More and more virtual materials are being given geotags, which enables these virtuals to be geospatially located. More and more of these geotagged items are being made available via public web services and/or public feeds. Spatial mashups integrating various services/feeds are not a passing fad. Google Earth is set to be integrated with Honda and VW.

This deserves its own paragraph. Google Earth is set to be integrated with Honda and VW. Imagine importing Declan Butler's Google Earth Avian Flu KML file. ArcMap scripts can export to KML, as can MapInfo, and Shape2Earth can convert shapefiles to KML without an additional GIS application. Just think of the various geotagged virtuals that can be uploaded/accessed via your in-car navigation system.

I can think of no medium or technology that will tear down the boundaries between the virtual and the real more succinctly than geospatial technologies. We are all heading toward a society where geospatially-driven augmented reality will become commonplace. I not only foresee, but I yearn for the day when portable augmented reality systems will allow me to spatially see and interact with geotagged virtual items.

Here are some images from Tinmith Augmented Reality Research to give you more of an idea of what augmented reality is. As I was writing this, however, something that I initially could not put my finger on was bothering me. Something was missing. Now I think I have figured it out. (Isn't it great how writing does this for us?) There is a growing trend to geotag popular and daily consumer items, such as blogs, photos, friends, clubs, even news stories. However, I feel there is a lack of geotagged scholarly resources. Resources such as scholarly journal articles (there are a number of fantastic open source journals out there). Tags can be generated for the author location and more importantly for different geospatial subjects or locations of interest in the article. Scholarly books as well. I want to ensure that when the walls between the virtual and the real come fumbling down, there is a place for the scholarly as well as the popular.
Posted by mapz at 4/19/2006 08:14:00 AM No comments: 
Google Map Viewer & Zoho Sheet for Attributes

Learned about Zoho via: ResourceShelf 
Position: Map Librarian (St Paul, MN)

Map Librarian - EastView Cartographic, Inc. (St Paul, MN)

This sounds like an extremely interesting corporate librarian position, with a strong emphasis on Russian and Chinese cartographic materials.

Here is the snippet

"Map Librarian: Mpls. Take charge of corporate Russian/ Chinese specialty map/GIS/ cartographic library of materials in paper, digital, films. Require Master in Library Science or equivalent, courseworks taken in cartography. ArcGIS, database mgmt."

No mention of salary range, but I am indeed curious whether such a corporate position will pay less or more than an academic position...
Posted by mapz at 4/16/2006 09:28:00 AM No comments: 
Blog Facelift

It's been 7 months or so since I migrated my blog here from Bloglines, and the cluttered-ness of the layout was really getting to me. So I replaced the old template with a cleaner, fresher model that actually uses the full width of your screen.

Much more relaxing around here now, isn't it?
Posted by mapz at 4/14/2006 01:17:00 PM No comments: Can You Get a Decent Slice of Pizza in Texas? No, Not Really...

There are a couple of places that try hard to serve up a nice hot slice of pizza, but none of them even come close to being great.

So...I held a GIS workshop yesterday, entitled 'Where to Open a New Pizzeria in the D/FW Metroplex?' Went better than expected, with 9 students, 2 faculty, and 2 interested staff members attending.
Posted by mapz at 4/14/2006 01:02:00 PM No comments: 
Position: Social Sciences Data Librarian (Rutgers University)

No mention of the salary range.

Here are some snippets:
Posted by mapz at 4/10/2006 08:42:00 AM No comments: 
More Recent GIS-Related Dissertations

Haven't posted a new crop of GIS/Geography-related dissertations since January 2006.

Here is the latest installment in dissertations that have caught my eye.

Posted by mapz at 4/09/2006 11:02:00 PM No comments: Want to Be a GIS Librarian? 10 Things You Should Know

Posted by mapz at 4/09/2006 06:39:00 PM 2 comments: 
GIS Market Analysis: Hotel Industry

Yesterday, two urban planning students came to the library for advice about where to obtain appropriate datasets to run a gravity model ("predicts the sales potential of an area based on distance, competition, attractiveness factors, and consumer spending") on the hotel industry in Austin, TX.

Well, unbeknownst to them they were indeed in luck as occupancy and sales data for hotels are more readily available in Texas than most other industries. This is why the final project in my advanced real estate market analysis course (syllabus: Flash) is a comprehensive market analysis of the hotel industry in the DFW Metroplex.

Here is a list of free and library-acquired datasets that I am helping the urban planning students to integrate into their analysis. (These are in addition to the standard GIS layers they will need).

Posted by mapz at 4/06/2006 03:50:00 PM 1 comment: 
Shareware: Christine GIS System 2.01

Christine GIS System 2.01 was just released.

When students have light-weight GIS work (joining Census tables to shapefiles, for example) they need to complete for non-academic purposes, I almost always recommend the freely available (freeware) GIS Christine Viewer. Our educational license for ESRI software prohibit non-academic use of ArcGIS.

I have been hesitant, however, to point out the shareware version, called Christine GIS System, as the capabilities did not seem worth the money. Late March, they released version 2.01 which really impresses me. It can create buffers, work with cad files, connect to WMS files, and is very scriptable.

The one feature that I would really like to see is geocoding support. However, with resources out there such as Batch Geocode, this is manageable. Should the shareware version of Christine offer geocoding support, this would become one heck of cheap, small, GIS app.
Posted by mapz at 4/04/2006 01:00:00 PM 3 comments: DOJ: Identity Theft Stats 2004

U.S. Department of Justice: Identity Theft, 2004

These stats astounded me. Especially this:

"3 in 10 households experiencing any type of identity theft discovered it by missing money or noticing unfamiliar charges on an account; almost 1 in 4 were contacted by a credit bureau."

That's 3 out of 10!!!

Here is a quick customized Google Maps webpage showing the areas in Texas where households are most at risk: http://gis.uta.edu/arcmap2gmap/samples/idtheft.html. The map shows areas that have a high concentration of at-risk households as determined by the report: Red polygons are those areas that meet all 3 requirements listed above. Green polygons are urban areas where the median income is higher than $75,000. Blue polygons are urban areas where there is a large concentration of households headed by those in ages 18 - 24. Red pushpins are provided for the areas most at risk.

Of course, this map was generated using ArcMap2GMap.
Posted by mapz at 4/04/2006 08:47:00 AM No comments: Unimpressive - Google's Related Links Feature

So, I am trying out Google's new 'Google Related Links' service on this blog (bottom of right-hand menu) and I like the idea.

via: ResearchBuzz

Related news, searches, and links (pick 2) are dynamically generated. At this moment, in the 'news' category, there is only a single link to an available job from the Directions Magazine: Job Listings.


Color me spoiled, but I was hoping for a bit more...

Not exactly what I was hoping for. I will leave it on my blog for a few days and see whether it improves. Here is what I would like to see:
Posted by mapz at 4/04/2006 07:59:00 AM No comments: Saturday, April 01, 2006

Woops - ArcMap2GMap Corrected...

Major woops...

Posted by mapz at 4/01/2006 01:37:00 PM 2 comments: GIS Discussion Boards out of the Library

Starting this Summer, our library will begin experimenting with topical discussion boards that anyone on campus (and possible off) will be able to participate in. The idea is that this will help to increase scholarly communication (and information literacy) among students, staff, and faculty, and therefore bring us all together.

Well, the initial pilot project will be a GIS-topic discussion board. I think this will be fantastic. Presently, any student not taking a GIS course who wants assistance has only one place to turn to...the library. Now, this is great as it is my job responsibility to provide such assistance. But when I sit back and think of students helping other students, well let me tell you it almost brings a tear to my eye. Seriously.

Currently, information regarding GIS news/activities is sent out via the email@example.com list. For the life of me, I cannot convince students to subscribe. Most subscribers are faculty and staff with an interest in GIS. I am of the belief that this is not unique and that student participation in traditional university-run email listservs are low. Therefore, I am convinced that student participation will be so much higher if we change the medium to a discussion board system with public rss feeds.

I know this is improbable, but I like to daydream about one day sending information about a spatial dataset we (the library) are interested in acquiring and hearing immediate and widespread student feedback. We shall see, eh?
Posted by mapz at 4/01/2006 06:32:00 AM No comments: Position: Digital Librarian/Cyberinfrastructure for Biodiversity and Ecosystems (NBII)

Digital Librarian/Cyberinfrastructure for Biodiversity and Ecosystems - National Biological Information Infrastructure, Reston, VA or Washington, D.C. via IIa

"...help build the next generation of the National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII)." Now, how could any librarian with an interest in the life sciences not want in on that?

Unfamiliar with the NBII? Check out their website. U.S. federal agency that provides access to a wealth of biological information, including secondary publications as well as datasets.

Check out the NBII Metadata Clearinghouse, which is a registered node of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure Clearinghouse. The NSDI is a program of the Federal Geographic Data Committee to collect and disseminate U.S. spatial data. (Nice facelife on the FGDC site, BTW.)

Here some snippets from the position description:Now, this position "requires" an MLS and "desires" GIS experience. As I stated earlier, IMHO this is indeed the best way to go for many libraries.
Posted by mapz at 4/01/2006 05:55:00 AM No comments: Monitor Blog
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