BTAA-GIN Collection Stories

By Cecilia Smith Project Task Force Members: Cecilia Smith, GIS & Maps Librarian By far, the maps most frequently requested at the University of Chicago library are the social scientists maps published by UChicago researchers in the 1920s and 1930s. Out of dozens of maps, however, there is a showstopper: East 63rd Street : Cottage Grove Ave. to Stony Island Ave. East 63rd Street : Cottage Grove Ave. to Stony Island Ave. Like the other social scientists maps, the East 63rd Street map was produced sometime in the early 20th century. Our best guess is that it was printed in the 1930s by a sociology researcher. Unlike its cohort, East 63rd is a showstopper for three reasons: It’s huge: The East 63rd Street map is about 112 inches x 15 inches. While relatively narrow, finding space to unfold a map that is nearly twice a person’s height is challenging! The historical changes are striking : The map depicts a bustling thoroughfare with busy storefronts and an elevated rail stop (that’s th...

 By Karen Majewicz If you are looking to perform geospatial analysis on a dataset in the geoportal, using the “Open in ArcGIS” button will come in handy. A large percentage of the geospatial data resources in the geoportal are also available as ArcGIS Rest Services , which are hosted streaming datasets that can be added to an online map application. To find the resources with web services, use the facet “Type” and select “Service” . Items with ArcGIS Rest services will have an option in the Links panel that says “Open in ArcGIS.” Clicking this text will open an instance of ArcGIS Online with the selected dataset loaded. From there, you can symbolize the dataset and add other files to your map. Click "Open in ArcGIS" under the links panel Note to perform geospatial analysis or to save the map, you will need to log in or create an account with ArcGIS Online.