BTAA-GIN Collection Stories

By Jay Bowen - GIS Specialist, The Digital Scholarship & Publishing Studio, The University of Iowa Libraries  The BTAA Geoportal has a wealth of interesting and beautiful historic scanned maps available to the public to download. Recently, I discovered John Henry Renshawe's shaded relief maps of US national parks from the early 1900s. Using his Panoramic View of the Yosemite National Park, California from 1914, I wanted to demonstrate an open-source technique for adding three dimensionality to these fantastic relief maps. Download and Georeference the JPG File The first step is to download the map here and load it into a georeferencer tool in your favorite GIS software. While I find georeferencing in ArcGIS Pro to be an intuitive breeze, I used the Georeferencer tool in QGIS to keep with an open-source and MacOS-oriented workflow. You can do a lot of amazing GIS work in the comfort of your home with a MacBook! As shown in the screenshot above, I rubbersheeted the ...

By Shirley Li Featured Item or Collection: Indiana Statewide LiDAR: 2016-2020 What is the item? This index map provides download links to LiDAR data in Indiana. The 3DEP data products consist of lidar point clouds (LAS) and digital elevation model (DEM) data. 3DEP acquisition of QL2 Lidar for the State of Indiana began in spring of 2016 and was completed in the spring of 2020, with the final data delivered in December 2020. The data was made available as a web-based distribution method supported by GDSL@Purdue and Institute for Digital Forestry at Purdue University.    What BTAA Library submitted the item? Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies Interesting tidbits You can not only download the point cloud data, but also the derived DSM, DTM, and NDHM. You can preview DEM and NDHM in the browser The Indiana LiDAR data portal is built using open source technology Caption: LiDAR data download for Marion Count...

By Karen Majewicz Featured Item:  National Farmers Market Directory Spring has arrived and local farmers markets will soon be opening up in many parts of the country. Image caption: Midtown Farmers Market handpainted sign. Looking for a local selection of produce? Planning a road trip and don’t want to deal with grocery stores? Check out the National Farmers Market Directory , which is available as a spatial dataset, a downloadable CSV, or a queryable web service. The attribute data includes the name, location, seasonal dates, and hours of operation. It also notes what kind of food is available, including the following categories: Organic Baked goods Cheese Crafts Flowers Eggs Seafood Herbs Vegetables Honey Jams Maple Meat Nursery Nuts Plants Poultry Prepared Soap Trees Wine Coffee Beans Fruits Grains Juices Mushrooms Pet Food Tofu Wild Harvested Interesting tidbits: Several states in the Big Ten region have the most farmers markets in the country. The populous states of California...

By Laura Kane McElfresh Featured Item or Collection: Fire insurance maps of Minneapolis ("Sanborn atlases"), 1912 and 1923-1930 (hard copies) What is the item? Two sets of Minneapolis "Sanborn atlases" ( Fire insurance maps of Minneapolis ), published in 1912. These large maps (the books are 70 cm high, or 27 1/2 inches) are drawn on a 1:600 scale (50 feet = 1 inch) and show a building-level, block-by-block depiction of the city. Caption: Sanborn maps "show the size, shape, and construction of dwellings, commercial buildings, and factories as well as fire walls, locations of windows and doors, sprinkler systems, and types of roofs. The maps also indicate widths and names of streets, property boundaries, building use, and house and block numbers". -- Introduction to the Sanborn Map Collection , Library of Congress Previously owned by the City of Minneapolis, these Sanborn Atlases were among a collection of Twin Cities-area maps and atlases stored in the ...

 By Cecilia Smith. Chicago Ethnic Group Shapefiles 1868-1940 What are the items? These shapefiles show generalized majority ethnic groups in areas across Chicago from 1868, 1884, 1898, 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940. The map and historical information presented here include materials reflecting the attitudes, language, and stereotypes of an earlier time period. These materials are presented as historical resources in support of study and research. Inclusion of such materials does not constitute an endorsement of their content by the BTAA Geoportal or the University of Chicago. What BTAA Library submitted the item? University of Chicago Interesting tidbits: The data was derived from a 1948 doctoral dissertation titled “The effects of subsidy of Presbyterian Churches" by Henry Hughes Presler. Presler’s dissertation explored the relationship of Presbyterian churches to ethnic groups in Chicago and contains 10 maps. Where can I find out more? Presler’s dissertation can be found at Mansue...