LibGuides: Digital Mapping Tools and Resources: GIS

Geographic Information and Technologies in Practice

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Technologies

Produce maps in order to integrate, manipulate, and analyze spatial data and related statistical or descriptive data. GIS provides tools for integrating, querying, and analyzing a
wide variety of data types; scientific and cultural data, satellite imagery, and aerial photography, as well as original data you collect. This guide provides a sample of resources loosely classified geographically and thematically for common information needs.
Contact the Library for help finding GIS.
LINK to the Locating GIS Slides - Fall 2021

What are the building blocks of a Geographic Information System?

1. Numerical Algorithms - enable you to assign data to a geographic reference.
2. Statistics. Data sets visualized with layers and oriented geographically.
3. Optimization: The ability to orient the GIS to a particular area of research.
LINK to a larger explanation of GIS.

We can help you:

Locate, interpret, and visualize GIS data.
Incorporate GIS into your projects.
Access Open Source Internet Mapping.

Adapted from Boland, Maeve A. "Geographic Information Systems." Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics,edited by Carl Mitcham, vol. 2, Macmillan Reference USA, 2005, pp. 856-857.Gale Virtual Reference Library, Accessed 26 Sept. 2017

Open Geo-data at Work

Maps Collections with GIS visual analysis tools

ArcGIS Open Data Hub
Big Ten Geoportal
Geospatial Projects hosted by the Big Ten Universities in the United States. Project purposes and scope vary initial goals.
CADMapper
Transforms data from public sources such as OpenStreetMap, NASA, and USGS into neatly organized CAD files.
DataONE
Community driven program providing access to data across multiple member repositories, supporting enhanced search and discovery of Earth and environmental data.
Digital Maps & Geospatial Data Portal
by Princeton University Library
Earth Explorer by the USGS
GEOSS Portal
Earth Observation data from archives all over the world.
Google Earth
Interdisciplinary Earth Data Alliance
Data Repositories and Syntheses of Geomapped data from across the globe. Contact a librarian for assistance in extract datasets.
NGA GEOnet Names Server
OneGeology.org
Datasets collected from across the globe.
OpenStreetMap
Basemap tool for visualizing layers from various open source data sets. Several other open source GIS data providers use OpenStreetMap for data visualization.
Social Explorer
Note: create an account to save maps and create presentations.
UN Geospatial Information Section
United Nations Environment Programme
geospatial data sets (maps), covering themes like Freshwater, Population, Forests, Emissions, Climate, Disasters, Health and GDP. Display them on-the-fly as maps, graphs, data tables or download the data in different formats.

United States

Anyplace America
Data USA
Library of Congress Map Collections
National Geologic Map Database
U.S. Department of Transportation Geospatial at the Bureau of Transportation Statistics
United States Gazetteer
USGS Publications Warehouse
National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS)
access to summary statistics and GIS files for U.S. censuses and other nationwide surveys from 1790 through the present.
USGS the National Map Viewer
Orthoimagery, elevation, geographic names, hydrographs, boundaries, transportation, structures, and land cover.
USGS Earth Explorer

Canada

Canadian Atlas Online
This site allows you to use numerous tools to customize and view a map of Canada which provides street level detail for all of Canada.

Old Maps Online
OldMapsOnline.org indexes and links to over 400,000 maps from reliable sources from Map collections all over the world.
Urban Displacement Project
The project aims to understand the nature of gentrification, and displacement, and exclusion in American cities. It focuses on creating tools to help communities identify the pressures surrounding them and take more effective action.

more... less...

Chapple, K., & Thomas, T., and Zuk, M. (2021). Urban Displacement Project website. Berkeley, CA: Urban Displacement Project.
Recognized by Resources for College Libraries
Pleiades
Pleiades is a community-built gazetteer and graph of ancient places. It publishes authoritative information about ancient places and spaces, providing unique services for finding, displaying, and reusing that information under open license.
Picturing Places
Discover the role and history of topographical views, maps and texts through over 500 examples from the British Library’s collections and beyond, with fresh research in over 100 articles and films from an academic conference hosted by the British Library and Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.
Decima - Florentine Census Mapping

Digital Mapping Tools and Resources: GIS