Link dump? No link dump.
I'm always hesitant just to post a bunch of bookmarks. A: that's not why I write this. I'd like to think that if I'm going to refer my loyal reader to something it should either be pretty fantastic or I should at least make some comment on it. B: Isn't that what the stinkin' blogroll is for? C: Or maybe that's what the stinkin' bookmark file is for.
Anyway, I digress. There's a bunch of GIS stuff I want to talk about, but realistically I'm way too ignorant to be coherent. So, if you know what you're talking about: please bear with me.
All Points is afraid that Google will become the default repository of hi-res imagery. I think it misses a subtle point: by default G-Earth only displays one set of data. It actually takes some messing around to get other things to display (the discussion in question revolves around NOAA making Katrina imagery available via .kml ). Was this the only way to get to that data, or just the easiest? I'm betting you can download the tiffs or jpegs somewhere else.......and.....2 minutes on the interweb led me to jpegs. Here's more info on NOAA's imagery, along with some additional information to aid in geo-referencing.
Not too much farther down my result list is a big page of links to agencies that have provided maps and imagery of the disaster. A lot of that's not georeferenced either. Guess where that page is located? In a library.
My point? There's always going to be multiple sources of data. The fact that Google has made it easy to display that data on a map is really cool, but I don't think they geo-referenced the information: I think volunteers did. And here's an important point: Google works because people make content. A lot of content is either personal or a collateral duty of someone's job. If none of us map librarians blogged or created pages of links to data on the web, how well would Google work?
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One little tidbit I've gleaned from all my current reading is that Microsoft is making a play into the virtual globe arena. Unfortunately, the only people who seem impressed enough to blog about it are MS employees. But: this announcement does dovetail nicely with a reference question I got asked this week (not that it helps answer it).
Speaking of reference questions, I think I've now gotten the equivalent of the person walking into the medical library, pulling up their sleeve, and asking 'do you know what this is?' The question? 'I got this map and legend has it my great, great, great uncle buried his gold here before going off to the Civil War.'
__________________________________
Finally this afternoon, our friend over at the Map Room points us to a Google Earth basics page, which in turn pointed me to these clever, clever people.
Anyway, I digress. There's a bunch of GIS stuff I want to talk about, but realistically I'm way too ignorant to be coherent. So, if you know what you're talking about: please bear with me.
All Points is afraid that Google will become the default repository of hi-res imagery. I think it misses a subtle point: by default G-Earth only displays one set of data. It actually takes some messing around to get other things to display (the discussion in question revolves around NOAA making Katrina imagery available via .kml ). Was this the only way to get to that data, or just the easiest? I'm betting you can download the tiffs or jpegs somewhere else.......and.....2 minutes on the interweb led me to jpegs. Here's more info on NOAA's imagery, along with some additional information to aid in geo-referencing.
Not too much farther down my result list is a big page of links to agencies that have provided maps and imagery of the disaster. A lot of that's not georeferenced either. Guess where that page is located? In a library.
My point? There's always going to be multiple sources of data. The fact that Google has made it easy to display that data on a map is really cool, but I don't think they geo-referenced the information: I think volunteers did. And here's an important point: Google works because people make content. A lot of content is either personal or a collateral duty of someone's job. If none of us map librarians blogged or created pages of links to data on the web, how well would Google work?
__________________________________
One little tidbit I've gleaned from all my current reading is that Microsoft is making a play into the virtual globe arena. Unfortunately, the only people who seem impressed enough to blog about it are MS employees. But: this announcement does dovetail nicely with a reference question I got asked this week (not that it helps answer it).
Speaking of reference questions, I think I've now gotten the equivalent of the person walking into the medical library, pulling up their sleeve, and asking 'do you know what this is?' The question? 'I got this map and legend has it my great, great, great uncle buried his gold here before going off to the Civil War.'
__________________________________
Finally this afternoon, our friend over at the Map Room points us to a Google Earth basics page, which in turn pointed me to these clever, clever people.
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