What's New? ---Library's New Infoguide

Welcome to the fall semester, 2008! Please check our new infoguides that replace our existing library subject pages. I have created the infoguides on Geospatial Data and GIS services , geography, maps, and United States Government Publications. These guides offer various scholarly resources and library research techniques for the related subjects. Please take a look at them and give me your feedback. Thanks.

NARA AND USGS for preservation of EROS Data

See more on this, http://www.gcn.com/online/vol1_no1/46481-1.html?topic=&CMP=OTC-RSS#
"The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the USGS have signed an agreement to ensure preservation of and access to Earth Imagery and geospatial data currently archived by USGS at its Earth Resources Observation and Science Center in Sioux Falls, SD. The records will remain at the EROS Center under the day-to-day control of USGS..." (source, govdoc-l)

USGS SPOT Images

Are you looking for SPOT Images? The full archive of historical Landsat 7 ETM+ data from the USGS, wherein users pay for on-demand processing to various parameters before , will be free to downloading. See more in detail at
http://landsat.usgs.gov/images/squares/USGS_Landsat_Imagery_Release.pdf

GeoRef and Google Maps

Another Google Project:
Elsevier’s Engineering Village Search Platform Combines The American Geological Institute’s GeoRef Database with Google Maps. See more on this at
http://www.resourceshelf.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/georef.html

Viewing the wetlands layer of NSDI on Google Earth

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service maps of the National Wetland Inventory are now available for viewing using Google Earth.

Please visit: http://www.fws.gov/nwi/WetlandsData/GoogleEarth.htm
More information about National Wetland Inventory can be found at:
http://www.fws.gov/nwi/index.html

New Bibliography : Middle East

A comprehensive bibliography on the Middle East: http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/bibs/middleeast08.htm

Census Atlas of the United States

The U.S. Census Bureau has recently published the first comprehensive Atlas of population and housing since the 1920s. Topics covered in the Atlas range from language and ancestry characteristics to housing patterns and the geographic distribution of the population using data from decennial censuses. See the complete atlas. (Source: Resourceshelf)

GIS workshop @ Fenwick Library

Spring 2008 GIS workshop at Fenwick Library will be resumed on February 20. This drop-in workshop provides basic skills on how to use ArcView and ArcMap and library's data collection. Please see the schedule at http://library.gmu.edu/research/classes.html

2007 GIS Day at Mason

• GMU will celebrate 2007 GIS Day (Nov.14) and National Geography Awareness week.
• See a full schedule of the events at http://library.gmu.edu/resources/govt/gisday2007.htm
This is a good opportunity where GMU GIS users and local GIS experts join together to share how GIS is used in research and community every day. Fenwick Library will host an open house event that includes demonstrations of GIS software and library geospatial data resources. Refreshments will be provided. Please join us as we celebrate this event!!

Library's New Acquisition:

World language Mapping System CD-ROM (G1046. E3 2007. W67) provides comprehensive and up-to-date locations of the world's nearly 7000 ethno-linguistic peoples. It requires ArcGIS software to display and work with the data.
Topo maps-Mid Atlantic CD-ROM (G3790 2002.I 45) provides 7.5 minutes (1:24,000) USGS topographic maps in the DC, Delaware, Virginia and West Virginia area. You can search the CD by place name, township, and location. All Topo Maps will convert Lat/Lon and UTM coordinate display and traces distance measurements. Maps can be directly exported to .Tif and .TFW format for use with CAD and GIS applications.

These two CDs are located in the government documents unit in Fenwick Library.

North Carolina Historical Topographic Maps

can be downloaded for free at http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/gis/historictopos.html. "This collection is composed of both georeferenced JPEG 2000 format images and lossless non-georeferenced JPEG 2000 images." (source: maps-l).

TIGER Polygons in KML format

The Department of Geography at the University of Tennessee has recently posted a program, TGR2KML, that will extract US Census Polygons to Google KML format. You can download this program free at http://tnatlas.geog.utk.edu. If you need to use Tiger polygons in Google, this will be very useful...

More Maps available from ReliefWeb

from various UN Agencies and other sources:http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/dbc.nsf/doc100?OpenForm
+Africa’s Hunger Crisis
+ Sudan: General Threat Map with the Result of Landmine Impact Survey (LIS)
+ Sri Lanka: Topographic Map
+ Reference Map of Timor-Leste (as of Mar 2007)
+ Reference Map of Central Asia
+ Reference Map of Kosovo Region (as of Mar 2007)
+ Reference Map of Bosnia and Herzegovina (as of Mar 2007)
+ Reference Map of South Africa (as of Feb 2007)and more......
(Source: ResourceShelf)

NEW: Conservation GeoPortal

"To help people working in conservation locate this elusive data, a group of organizations working under the umbrella of the Conservation Commons recently developed the Web-based Conservation GeoPortal ." It's one-stop place to find, evaluate, and sharing data and maps for conservation. (source: ArcWatch, 5/07)

Library New Collection--more CensusCDs from Geolytics, Inc.

The following new acquired CD-Roms have already been popular items to use in Fenwick Library. Please check them out.
**Neighborhood Change Database (NCDB)- Access to US Census Data from 1970, 1980, 1990 and 2000 in their census year tract boundaries. Also access data for all four decades normalized to 2000 Census Tract boundaries so that one can compare data for various years within the same bounday definition.
**Zip+4 CD (Standard)- gives geocoding of zip+4 to census block with demographic variables.
**Zip+4 with 2006 Estimates and 2011 Projections- additional of 60+ demographic variables and 2011 estimates to Zip+4 CD.

USGS Store Locator and Free Downloading of GeoPDF files

Try the new map locator and downloader provided by USGS.

**You can find and order topo maps in the U.S. and Antarctica. You can also download new GeoPDF files derived from scans of topo maps.
**These GeoPDF files are georegistered digital map derivations fo the original electronic files. (maps-l).

China Historical GIS

China Historical Geographic Information Systems (CHGIS), Version 4 Datasets, is just released providing a fully documented database of historical administrative units in China. The new datasets may be downloaded free of charge for academic use but you have to register. The site is at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~chgis (Source: Maps-L).

Digitized Atlas from the Perry-Castaneda Library

The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas at Austin (an essential site for map and geographic research) has digitized the full text and images of eight historic atlases and made them available online.

+ Army Map Service Topographic Map Series (1945-)
+ Atlas of Mexico (1975)
+ Atlas of Texas (1976)
+ Cambridge Modern History Atlas (1912)
+ Historical Atlas by William Shepherd (1911)
+ Historical Atlas by William Shepherd (1923-26)
+ National Atlas of The United States of America (1970)
+ Public Schools Historical Atlas by C. Colbeck (1905)

(Source: ResourceShelf)

Census Tract Shape Files

and data from the 1940 census onward are downloadable from the National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS) web site. It's a cool site. Also explore Social Explore Site for interactive maps with historical census data.

NEW: NASA's World Wind Digital Globe-3D Cross Section Viewer

is just released. "This plug-in allows you to select a square area of terrain and view the ‘cut-out’ in a separate 3D window - the terrain viewer."
http://www.worldwindcentral.com/wiki/ 3D_Cross_Section_plugin_and_viewer
(Source: ResourceShelf).