BTAA-GIN Collection Stories

 By Cecilia Smith Featured Item: Shipwrecks (Great Lakes), Wisconsin 2014 This is a shapefile of 631 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes of Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Historical Society compiled the data. What BTAA Library submitted the item? University of Wisconsin Interesting tidbits: There’s a good deal of interesting attribute data in the shapefile, including: the vessel type, where the vessel was built, the lives lost in the wreck, and more. Using this dataset, you could create a time animation using the wreck dates or a comparison of home ports and wreck locations. Where can I find out more? More information about Wisconsin shipwrecks, including a searchable database of the wrecks, is available here: http://www.wisconsinshipwrecks.org/ The Wisconsin Coastal Atlas ( http://www.wicoastalatlas.net/ ) is a great resource for maps, data, and tools for the region Have questions about this item, the BTAA geoportal, or maps and geospatial data in general? Please don’t hesitate to contact our...

By Nathan Piekielek, Paige Andrew, and Linda Ballinger Project Task Force Members Nathan Piekielek, Geospatial Services Librarian; Paige Andrew, Maps Cataloging Librarian and Linda Ballinger, Metadata Strategist Over the course of the past three years Penn State University Libraries has organized and shared through the BTAA geoportal cartographic information resources of two primary types: 1) digital surrogates of original paper maps and atlases; and 2) geospatial datasets. Paper maps and atlases are from The Donald W. Hamer Maps Collection and Eberly Family Special Collections Library. Geospatial data are from state agencies across Pennsylvania that have been contributed to The Pennsylvania Geospatial Data Clearinghouse ( PASDA ). Some examples of each follow: A nearly complete collection of Pennsylvania Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps that when properly georeferenced can be used to track land use change through time and can be linked to other historical human geography data sources lik...