BTAA-GIN Blog

Carmen Benito-Vessels talks about her newest project, a StoryMap Collection entitled "The Missing  Link"   Interviewer: Alice Benjamin, GIS Graduate Assistant,  GIS and Data Service Center , University of Maryland Libraries, College Park   About the Researcher:     Carmen Benito-Vessels is a Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Maryland.. She is the author of several books, has published numerous articles, and conducts research in the fields of Medieval historiography and poetry, the interaction of medieval literary genres, and Hispanic Philology, among others. Learn more about Carmen Benito-Vessels and her work here:  https://sllc.umd.edu/directory/carmen-benito-vessels .   " The Missing Link " is an interactive guide, presented in a StoryMap format, to accompany Benito-Vessels' research about early modern Spain and the early modern United States. Her work has been recently added in the Big10 geoportal. The primary goal of

By Milan Budhathoki The Morrill Reckoning , one of the latest items added to the BTAA Geoportal, is a project sponsored by University of Maryland Libraries. It was created and fulfilled as part of a certificate practicum requirement by Dr. Lisa Carney in Master in Library Information Science program (2023). This showcase is in line with UMD's commitment to promoting Indigenous knowledge, advancing decolonization efforts, and fostering restorative justice. The initiative is made possible through a 2022-2023 Teaching and Learning Program Grant, " Decolonizing Education to meet the Demands of Climate Change ," led by Patricia Kosco Cossard at UMD Libraries and co-sponsored by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. Picture 1:  Altered image of the Morrill Act of 1862 highlighting the words " public land ." This web based Morrill Reckoning exhibit documents the process by which land of over 30 Native American nations was forcibly expropriated and sold to fund the en

By Tara Anthony, Penn State University Libraries   The  BTAA Geoportal  includes historic aerial photography records that span institutions. This post focuses on searching and  locating  aerial photography records in the BTAA Geoportal with a focus on Pennsylvania historical aerial photography collections.    Overview of h istoric aerial photos in the BTAA Geoportal   A  search for aerial photo  yields 1, 701  records  (as of October 2023)  with a h igher  p ortion  of records seen from Pennsylvania, followed by Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, Nebraska, and New Jersey . The  time  period  of the aerial photo re cords  l o cated  is from  the present back to the 1900 -1949  time  period , with the most records present in the 1950 to 1999 time  per iod .    A highlight of some resources wi ll be  pr ovided  her e, along with a greater focus on Pennsylvania historic aerial photo collections. Wisconsin Historic Aerial Imagery

By Ronda L. Sewald It was February of 2021. I'd just returned to Indiana University's Bloomington campus for the first time since the start of the pandemic. Sitting on my desk in the middle of the dimly lit and empty cubicle farm was a small folder. Trying to ignore the gloomy and cave-like atmosphere, I opened the folder and turned my attention to a curious set of sixteen hand-drawn map sheets, all sketched between 1926 and 1931 by someone who went by "Malott" or "C.A.M." It was an odd assortment of topographic and cave maps that paid meticulous attention to rises, sinks, swallow-holes, and a mysterious inland gulf. The maps were clearly related to Indiana karst topography, but what tied them all together and who was "Malott?"   A search on "Malott" in the BTAA Geoportal resulted in one other map, specifically   Drainage Map of the Upper and Middle Parts of Lost River Basin: Orange, Washington, and Lawrence Counti