The Geospatial Historian, modeled after the Programming Historian, is a “tutorial-based open access textbook for historians and digital humanists that aim to teach digital mapping and GIS skills.” Current lessons include Google Maps and Google Earth, Installing QGIS and Adding Layers, Creating New Vector Layers, and Georeferencing. The site editors are looking for additional contributions – contact jim.clifford@usask.ca to join the project.
Tag: geospatial tools
POST: Size Matters
Academic librarians teach information literacy, visual literacy, digital literacy — but do we teach spatial literacy? This post from Kelly Johnston (GIS Specialist for the Scholars’ Lab, University of Virginia) explores the value of spatial thinking, linking out to a variety of intriguing resources and research, and introduces the GeoTron 5000 tool, an app developed “to put the power of comparative geography and spatial literacy in hand.” GeoTron 5000 allows for free comparisons across the 50 US states (and the District of Columbia!); users must purchase access to geographical comparisons beyond the US.
POST: The Digital Data Backbone for the Study of Historical Places
In preparation for their March 10 SXSW Interactive session, Why Digital Maps Can Reboot Cultural History, Butch Lazorchak (Digital Archivist, Library of Congress) and Matthew Knutzen (Geospatial Libarian, NYPL) discuss digital geospatial tools, using maps to tell stories, and digital stewardship and preservation issues in mapping projects. Knutzen goes step-by-step through the NEH-funded New York City Historical GIS Project and the MapWarper tool that NYPL Labs built to georectify over 5,000 maps from the Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division at the New York Public Library.