Branner Blog

Welcome to the 2009-2010 school year.  Information about new materials, changes in access and interfaces, and budget cuts appears in the

Fall 2009 Newsletter

We got an interesting new book in just the other day. It’s called “Geographic Visualization: Concepts, Tools and Applications.” The book has contributed chapters by people doing very creative things with spatial information. For example, there is a discussion about Google Earth and its use in social science research - problems found with georectification of imagery, differences in resolution in the tiling, and oddities in mapping census information. Other chapters deal with map animation, a discussion of the WorldMapper project’s innovative use of cartograms, and a critical evaluation of 3-D geographical visualization. The book includes plenty of good illustrations and references. Well worth looking at if you’re embarking on a mapping project and want to use new technology.

Welcome to the 2008/2009 school year! We’ve been busy at the library over the summer working on access to new digital content, loading digital book content into Socrates, and expanding the map and GIS collections. You can find out more about these changes by reading the fall newsletter.

Stanford affiliates now have access to the California Sanborn Fire Insurance maps from 1867-1970. These maps provide a unique view of the history of California’s cities and towns show urban growth, changes in ownership, building use, and materials.

The newest mechanical visitor to Mars, the Phoenix Mars Lander, descends through the atmosphere on Sunday to land in the Martian Arctic. Dubbed the first of the “Scout Missions,” the lander will provide information that may answer questions such as: Can the Martian arctic support life, what is the history of water at the landing site, and how is the Martian climate affected by polar dynamics?

You can read more about the mission at the main project Web page. Local Bay Area events include:

* Mars: Fire & Ice at the The Crucible in Oakland. Live feed of the landing from NASA.
* Chabot Space and Science Center, Oakland will host activities on Saturday and Sunday including a live feed of the event on Sunday afternoon.
* NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, will host a Sunday afternoon event with robotic demonstrations and pre-landing remarks from local scientists and engineers.

You can also watch the landing over the Internet by tuning into NASA tv at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

The Urban & Environmental Footprint 2050 Project at the Institute of Urban and Regional Development (IURD) at UC, Berkeley have constructed a GIS toolkit consisting of a series of ESRI shapefiles and grids describing, “many of the physical, administrative, transportation, demographic, economic, land use and land cover, and environmental characteristics of the 48 contiguous United States.” The data were pulled together by the Penn Institute for Urban Research and and the IURD. Layers include boundary files, census block files and attributes, transportation networks, major employment center information, measures of job accessibility, boundaries of federal lands, elevation and slope data, location of water bodies, and location of wetlands. The data are free and can be used for any purpose with attribution. A great new, free resource!

Just in time for your next field trip, come see our new display about Yosemite National Park.

Yosemite National Park, California. Cathedral Peak, viewed from Cathedral Pass, showing cut terrace. 1908. G.K. Gilbert. [via] USGS.

Visit us in person, or go to Branner’s Library Thing for a full list of books and maps on display.

We have additional copies of many of the display items available for you to take with you on your next Yosemite excursion.

Google Earth layer of Myanmar cyclone data
via
dotearth

The EPA has launched the “National Dialogue on Access to Environmental Information.” They are interested in obtaining your views on how to improve access to environmental information. Your input will help EPA develop a strategy to provide better access and delivery to environmental information. They would like to know the following:

* What you’re looking for
* How you use the information you find
* The words you use when you search for environmental information
* How you like to get your information (formats, styles, etc., as well as email vs. text vs. maps, etc.)
* Who you are (categories, not necessarily your name)

You can comment privately, or post on the public forum. Check out what other people are saying too.

The commenting period is open until the end of June.

Read this point-counterpoint on science blogging in the latest issue of Nature Geoscience*, and let us know what you think.