Google's Campus Street View

People can tour a campus effectively from their own computer and can be familiar themselves with campus layout.

"Google's Campus Street View gives the ability to its users to visit and tour college campuses virtually online."

Visit the participating campuses around the World:


See more information: GIS Blog

New Version of ACS Mapping Extension

is now available to download ; http://gesg.gmu.edu/census

Two major changes are:
-using ACS (American Community Survey) data downloaded from the new American Factfinder (AFF2)
-Additional function comparing estimates from a set of units to estimates in other units.

Please update this extension if you have not done so.. 

New Plant Hardiness Map from USDA

The USDA just released the new version of its Plant Hardiness Zone Map (PHZM) online, which is based on interactive format using GIS.

This map shows the standard by which gardeners and growers can determine which plants are most likely to thrive at a location.  You can find your zone by zip code.

Visit this online map: http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/

The full article is at:
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentid=2012/01/0022.xml&contentidonly=true

New Geospatial Platform Website

"The federal governement and its geospatial partners today unveiled www.geoplateform.gov, a prototype website providing an inital view of the future of user-friendly, integrated, federal data collections on common geographic maps." (See press release by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (11/09/2011)).

This platform combines map-based data and tools with the latest Internet technologies to deliver geospatial information in a simple, understandable package.  Users can easily find federally-maintained geospatial data, services and application, as well as access data from Federal, State, Tribal, Regional and local government.

SABIN:School Attendance Boundary Information System

Monday, December 12, 2011

SABIN:School Attendance Boundary Information System

The College of William & Mary and the Minnesota Population Center have launched the new School Attendance Boundary Information System funded by the National Science Foundation to assemble, harmonize, and disseminate GIS data for grade-specific school attendance embedded with school districts throughout the United States. In addition to GIS data for school attendance boundaries, SABINS also provides:

• Census data tabulated for the school attendance boundaries
• Crosswalk tables that link school attendance boundaries to data from the U.S. Dept. of Education's Common core of Data.

Also the system allows:

• download Census data for multiple grade levels in one extract
• download GIS data fro multiple grade levels in one extract
• constrain or expand data searches by specifying any combination of topics or datasets.

Visit the website for more information: http://www.sabinsdata.org

GIS Day @ Mason 2011--pictures

Great GIS Day once again at Mason! Many people attended the open house event in Fenwick Library and loved our demo on Google My Map. The attendants had many ideas to visualize their data (video, digital images, and text contents, etc) according to locations.


See for more selected pictures taken for this year's GIS Day event at Mason: http://infoguides.gmu.edu/content.php?pid=25574&sid=2298447

Celebrate GIS Day @ Mason

Please join us as Mason Libraries celebrate GIS Day 2011. The libraries annual GIS Day Open House event will be held Wednesday, Nov. 16 from 10:30 am-2:00 pm in Data Services, Floor 1 (Wing C-103), Fenwick Library.

There will be GIS demo on "How to visualize data using Google My Map," quizzes, prizes, refreshments, and more!

For more information on Mason's various GIS Day activities, please visit http://infoguides.gmu.edu/gisday or http://ggs.gmu.edu/GISDay.html

See you there!

Interactive Maps from USAID

USAID has recently developed a series of interesting interactive maps on the crisis in the Horn of Africa. See them at:
http://www.usaid.gov/fwd/crisis.html