Libology Blog

Census Atlas of the United States is the first publication of a “comprehensive atlas of population and housing produced by the Census Bureau since the 1920s.” The maps are beautiful and easy to use, although I doubt that an atlas of 314 pages can be properly called “comprehensive” when it comes to mapping census data. Oh… you noticed the price tag of $165.

Well, why not try out the free online edition? You get all the maps, and you only need a decent download speed (the chapters range from 3 to 21 MB).

Actually, what I would love to see is a full-blown Web 2.0 version of this resource. Imagine picking out your criteria from drop menus, choosing the scale of maps (full country, state, county, or city), and generating a map on the fly within your browser. I could think of quite a few maps that I would love to generate with that type of web site.

For good examples of what style of mapping web sites I am talking about check out ChicagoCrime.org or Trulia.

found via ResourceShelf

I am a bit of a political junkie… and it generally won’t spill over onto this blog. However, one resource that I have found very interesting when examining Ohio and New Hampshire results has been Google Maps coverage of the primaries. They haven’t committed to doing all 50 states, but the service has been popular, and I suspect that they will continue at least as long as the nominations are in play. As for November… who knows??

• Google LatLong Blog entry
• Iowa page
• New Hampshire page

found via Search Engine Land

The World Digital Library is a project that is quite vast in scope, but is looking ready to take on the challenge of combining primary historical resources from many of the worlds great libraries.

This project was started by UNESCO and the U.S. Library of Congress just last year, and was the subject of a presentation at the Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) 2007 conference last month.

Using PostGIS and MapServer, open-source programs that together join a database with mapping information, the library will allow users to search for and retrieve information via a well-thought-out, multi-lingual, world map interface, with a variety of tools for narrowing the search parameters.

I say “will allow users to search” because the library is not yet live. They do, however, have a demonstration video available, in two sizes:

• 500×365 pixels, 8MB
• 1010×720 pixels, 35MB

There is also a good article about the project in the Washington Post.

found on One Big Library

OpenStreetMap is a U.K.-based project that fulfills a great need:  an open, collaborative mapping project.  Ever find an error in MapQuest, Google Maps, or Yahoo Maps?  Can’t do much about it, can you?  OpenStreetMap will be able to be updated and corrected by their user base, and will be available for free, as in both beer and speech.  Think of it in terms of Wikipedia, which also illustrates the possibilities for errors and abuse, as well.

They have just jump-started their U.S. mapping effort with mapping information from the U.S. Census Bureau.  They have a long way to go, but with some local effort from people across the country, they could be a serious contender for our mapping needs.

Check out your local area to see what they have, and what they still need for their maps.

found on Linux.com

They’ve been around for a while, but I haven’t blogged about them yet, and they keep adding great features, so here is another great site for finding info related to location:

Melissa DATA has links to resources that give you information based on zip code, street address, and more.  Want to find out if an address is valid?  Know the address number and zip code, but don’t remember the street?  Mail delivery routes?  School districts?  These searches and more are at your fingertips.

found at ResourceShelf

The Haskell Free Library and Opera House has a somewhat unique situation:  it straddles the U.S.-Canadian border.

Now, according to this article in the Washington Times, the U.S. Border Patrol is cracking down on those who cross the border to use the library.  It is part of an effort to stop people from entering the U.S. illegally, but local residents are concerned about what this may mean for their community.

from ResourceShelf

Geonames is an online database of places.  Type in the name of a place, be it a town, city, geographic feature, or landmark, and you get a list of places with that name.

Want to know how many places in Colorado have the name Illinois?  Or whether Anytown really exists?  This is your resource!

The Advanced Search allow you to limit your searches by feature and continent.

from TechCrunch

It’s WikiSky!

Ideal for answering the question “was that object in the western sky a star or planet?”, as well as  many other star / constellation type questions.  It also includes photographs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), which means that you can view photographs of that same area of sky.

It’s not at the “web-based, jump in - the water’s fine” stage (though they indicate that they are working towards this), but the United States Geologic Service (USGS) has developed a National Land Cover Database from 2001 LandSat imagery.

This information provides very detailed (98ft square) information on every piece of land in the lower 48 states. If you have an interest in this, and don’t mind working with database information, check out their web site!

from ResourceShelf

As part of their real estate search area, Yahoo has debuted a School Search feature that provides information and reports on schools throughout the country.

from Search Engine Land

Neighboroo is one of the many mashups that exist using the Google Maps as the user interface.   What Neighboroo does is  give you a visual geographic layout of a variety of statistics, while doing a great job explaining those stats, and highlighting them by specific location.

Go to your chosen location, run through the categories, and see what I mean….

from Monkey Bites

Here is a distance calculator that takes the concept a step further than Google Maps or Mapquest… it recognizes location names other than address information.

Think in terms of buildings, statues, monuments, etc. Want to see how long of a walk it is between the Library of Congress and the Lincoln Memorial? This is where you can easily find the answer!

from ResourceShelf

The Libre Map Project had a goal of raising $1600 to fund their project.  Once that goal was met, they would open their collection of maps to the world.

They met their goal… in less than 24 hours.  Now the world will have access to their 56,000 maps via the Internet Archive.

Viva le Maps!

from Open Access News

From the University of California, Calisphere is an archival collection of digitized images, maps, documents and more.

from ResourceShelf

Trulia is a Google Maps mashup which combines the map, at whatever zoom you choose, and real estate listings.

Hover over the marker and see the address and asking price of the property. Click and get the option to get more details, including a link to the realtor’s listing.

Really, really good if you are looking for property based on location.

FlightStats is an informative site that offers real-time information, including a mapped location of a plane at any time during its flight, the weather at the departure and arrival airports, and much more

from ResourceShelf

Address Map Coordinate (Lat/Long) Finder will convert an address to a latitude/longitude coordinate, as well as show you the location via Yahoo maps. Oddly enough, the geocode link within the map takes you to Google Maps.

They also work with tab or bar (|) delimited files for batch processing here.

from InfoToGo

I’m a few days late in posting this one, but Google has set up a fairly extensive Help Center to provide information and assistance for the wide varieties of Google services.

In addition, Google’s blog notes that they received a “Hurricane Katrina Recognition Award” from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency for their work in setting up before and after comparisons for response teams using Google Earth.

Planet Quest is a 3-Dimensional interactive viewer for the Milky Way galaxy.  It works on any modern browser without downloading additional software, a definite plus!

from SpaceRef

A new mashup of Google Maps and weather information. View the area you are interested in, and the weather stations, cams, and forecasts are all tagged in the map.

It also includes a weather radar overlay - an excellent feature!

Weather Bonk.