Sometimes the very data we map can get in the way of our understanding the phenomena we are visualizing.
In the case of bird sightings for the Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, the typical approach to adding points over a map might have shown us where in time and space the birds were while on their annual migration, but the result would have also obscured the terrain over which they fly.
Three new digital collections are now available in SearchWorks. These collections take advantage of SearchWorks' ability to provide users with rich discovery and access capabilities for finding and working with digital collection content.
Stanford Geospatial Center Teaching Data
Abstract: These items are intended for use in Stanford Geospatial Center teaching materials.
Collection contact: Amy Hodge
In response to Friday’s powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake in Nepal, Stanford volunteer “crisis mappers” are working with Humanitarian OpenStreetMap to assist in disaster relief by mapping Nepal’s road networks, buildings, and residential areas.
Anyone with a laptop and spare time can help responders on the ground. The Stanford Geospatial Center housed in the Branner Earth Sciences Library will be hosting ongoing Introductory Relief Mapping sessions all week to help train people to use OpenStreetMap, an open source and open data sharing tool adding information to relief effort maps. Drop-in volunteers are encouraged to join all day from 9am-9pm, Monday-Friday.
Stanford University Libraries is happy to introduce EarthWorks, our new geospatial data discovery application. EarthWorks is a discovery tool for geospatial (a.k.a. GIS) data. It allows users to search and browse the GIS collections owned by Stanford University Libraries, as well as data collections from many other institutions. Data can be searched spatially, by manipulating a map; by keyword search; by selecting search limiting facets (e.g., limit to a given format type); or by combining these options.
As previously announced, the Ruth Asawa papers are now available. In thinking of fun and innovative ways to present certain aspects of her work, we decided to scan a small series of San Francisco architecture snapshots from her collection and upload them to the social mapping website Historypin, and also include them in their Year of the Bay local history project. These photographs were probably used as research in creating the San Francisco Fountain in Union Square, which features many cast dough relief images of the city. Unfortunately there is no information on or about the prints in the collection. They are likely all from the 1960s, and were probably taken by Asawa (she has referred to taking pictures of the city in preparation). Architectural historian Sally Woodbridge may have also contributed. The varying qualities of the prints implies that several cameras or developers were used, and that they were probably taken over a period of time. At any rate, they collectively serve as a remarkable portrait of the city in that decade.
The Stanford Geospatial Center, in support of a project headed by Stanford University Pediatric Global Health Physician/Scientist Eric Nelson, will host a Mapathon! where volunteer mappers will help create basemap data for a project to improve the quality and access to care for children in Bangladesh during cholera outbreaks.
Stanford University Pediatric Global Health Physician/Scientist Eric Nelson is using mapping apps to do something unexpected. Using the widely adopted Android mobile platform, Nelson is working with a diverse team of programmers and researchers, including the Stanford Geospatial Center and the Stanford Computer Science Department, to develop an application geared to assessing and providing guidance on treatment of diarrheal disease. The technology is being built and tested so that it will also have applicability in other outbreaks situations like Ebola. The project is funded by the NIH and, in partnership with the Ministry of Health of Bangladesh, Nelson is undertaking a study in Kendua, Bangladesh, to leverage mobile technology in overcoming these challenges.
In an NIH funded project, and in partnership with the Ministry of Health of Bangladesh, Stanford University Pediatric Global Health Physician/Scientist, Eric Nelson is undertaking a study in Kendua, Bangladesh, to leverage mobile technology in overcoming these challenges. Using the widely adopted Android mobile platform, Nelson is working with a diverse team of programmers and researchers, including the Stanford Geospatial Center and the Stanford Computer Science Department, to develop an application geared to assessing and providing guidance on treatment of diarrheal disease. The technology is being built and tested so that it will also have applicability in other outbreaks situations, like Ebola.