GIS at Smith College

Educating Legislators with Maps

2006-12-12T14:41:00.000-05:00

A Smith College research team was recently honored for creating maps that were influential in the passage of legislation to change the state’s education aid funding formula.

Nathanael A. Fortune, associate professor of physics at Smith, was named to the “2006 All State School Committee” in recognition of maps that he, Amanda Nyren '06, and Jon Caris, Smith Spatial Anaylsis Lab coordinator, developed using the college’s Spatial Analysis Lab and GIS (Geographic Information Systems) technology.

Who Moved my GIS?

2006-08-04T11:49:00.000-05:00

ESRI is readying the release of ArcGIS 9.2 and there will undoubtedly be changes that affect how you work and / or how your GIS exercises hold up to the rigors of student use.

I’ll organize a 9.2 “debriefing” mid to late August when I return from the ESRI User Conference. In the meantime, take a look at a few of the forthcoming enhancements from ESRI.

We'll likely role out 9.2 during the spring semester since our fall 2006 image is burned and ready to go.

Image Tip

2006-08-04T10:19:00.000-05:00

Did you know that you can "drag and drop" images from Windows Explorer onto ArcMap? You can! No more waiting for ArcCatalog to load the images into the contents panel. Save time and browse with Windows Explorer to your image collections (e.g. 2005 Orthophotos).

New Orthophotos are Here!

2006-08-04T10:13:00.000-05:00

The 2005 Massachusetts Orthophotos are now available for Western Massachusetts. Visit the MassGIS webstie for details. All orthophotos are available in the SAL on GEO. Just connect to:
\\Geo\datavol\gis\data\us_states\eastusa\ma\Images\Orthophotos\2005 and start viewing gorgeous imagery.

15 minute USGS maps

2006-05-04T09:04:00.000-05:00

We now have historic 15 minute USGS maps for Massachusetts in our Special Collections data library. These maps were acquired from the Harvard GeoSpatial Library which is a great resource for mappers and historians alike. You can now access these maps "locally" from our server - \\geo\gis\data\special_collections\ma_15min_quads

Enjoy....

Digital USGS Topographic map sheets for entire US available

2005-12-16T14:10:00.000-05:00

Starting in January, 2006, you will have access to all USGS topographic map sheets from within ArcGIS. National Geographic's TOPO! Professional Suite for ArcGIS will be installed in the Spatial Analysis Lab during Interterm. Instructions and demonstrations will be scheduled soon.

Special thanks to the Library (especially, the Science Library) for purchasing the software and data.

Smith College, Spatial Analysis Lab