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Data Discovery for Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Applications


The list below is being developed to offer guidance to anyone exploring the use of GIS in teaching and needing data to support applications. It is not complete and will be refined as curricular uses are further defined at Wheaton. Several sites on the list lead to data resources that are not ≥geocoded≈. That is, they cannot be read directly into the GIS software. However, we have resources to help bridge the gap between these data and that software.

What is GIS? How is it used?

Geographic Information Systems (from USGS)
How does it work? What's special about it? Applications, particularly in science.
http://www.usgs.gov/research/gis/title.html

What is a Geographic Information System (GIS)? from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
A clear picture of what GIS is and its basic requirements.
http://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/cmap/what.html

Creating a Map of Census Data Using a Geographic Information System: Tutorial
A step-by-step walk through using ArcView for map creation.
http://www.lib.umich.edu/maplib/tutorial/census.html

Schwartz, Robert M. (1999) Railways and Population Change in Industrializing England: An Introduction to Historical GIS (Draft).
Robert M. Schwartz is a professor of history at Mount Holyoke College.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/rail/chap1_2.html

Triplett, Dana. (2001) Part I: GIS in a liberal arts context. Part II: Implementing GIS - what do you need? Part III: Learning from university initiatives. National Institute for Technology in Liberal Arts Education.
A highly recommended introduction to the potential of GIS for the liberal arts. With links to sample projects at colleges and universities.
http://www.nitle.org/article.php

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GIS Gateway Sites

Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Entry Point to Geospatial Data Clearinghouse
Search data servers worldwide, via one search form. http://130.11.52.184/FGDCgateway.html

Geography Network - Clearinghouses
A collection of links to some of the more useful sites offering data (not all free) that work with GIS software.
http://www.geographynetwork.com/data/clearinghouses.cfm

Guide to GIS Resources on the Internet
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/GIS/gisnet.html

INFOMINE: Scholarly Internet Resource Collections - Maps & GIS
http://infomine.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/search?maps

Libraries GIS Data Resources (from NCSU Libraries)
Description and locations of key GIS resources, with an emphasis on North Carolina. Links to metadata and technical documentation provided if possible. While the list includes NC-specific and NCSU access only resources, the listing is valuable. Includes GIS Lookup: Data Access by Layer, a browsable geodata thesaurus with links to online data, metadata, documentation, web pages, and live web mapping.
http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/gis/data.html

The Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG) the Institute for Learning and Research Technology at the University of Bristol presents a collection of Web sites on geographic information systems (GIS) and cartography. The sites cover related articles and reports, data, educational materials, governmental bodies, organizations, and research projects.
http://sosig.esrc.bris.ac.uk/roads/subject-listing/World-cat/maps.html

WorldCat (the OCLC Online Union Catalog) is the world's foremost bibliographic database, with over 47 million bibliographic records representing 400 languages. WorldCat covers information from before 1,000 BC to the present, and includes holdings information from libraries in 45 countries. A FirstSearch database available from the "quick link" on the Library's Electronic Resources web page.

  • Search terms: subject: geographic information systems with Limit: Internet Resources; Computer Files can be combined with keyword(s): e.g. health

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Data and Statistics Gateways (all countries, social & natural sciences)

Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN)
Works at the intersection of the social, natural, and information sciences. The center specializes in on-line data and information management, spatial data integration and training, and interdisciplinary research related to human interactions in the environment.
http://www.ciesin.org/

ICPSR (Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research) About 30% of the datasets at the ICPSR are freely available and downloadable. Non-public holdings are restricted to individuals at ICPSR member institutions. Wheaton is not a member currently. Full data holdings are searchable.
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/

ICPSR (Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research) Special Topic Archives
Most of the data in the archives are publicly available. Topics include: health and medical care; international education; aging; criminal justice; substance abuse and mental health; Census 2000; U.S. election 2000.
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/topical.html

WorldCat (the OCLC Online Union Catalog) is the world's foremost bibliographic database, with over 47 million bibliographic records representing 400 languages. WorldCat covers information from before 1,000 BC to the present, and includes holdings information from libraries in 45 countries. A FirstSearch database available from the "quick link" on the Library's Electronic Resources web page.

  • Search terms: keyword: data set* or dataset* with Limit: Internet Resources; Computer Files can be combined with keyword(s): e.g. Massachusetts,

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Data and Statistics Gateways - SOCIAL SCIENCES

Data on the Internet
A selected listing of Internet sites providing statistical information within extract and analysis systems and/or downloadable formats.
http://statlab.stat.yale.edu/SSDA/internet.html

Data on the Net
Searchable, browsable gateway to hundreds of Internet sites of numeric social science statistical data, data catalogs and libraries, and more.
http://odwin.ucsd.edu/idata
Samples of interesting data from Data on the Net:

  • Census and Property Survey for Florentine Domains and the City of Verona in Fifteenth Century Italy (David Herlihy and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber) This site at the Data and Program Library Services (DPLS) of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, provides access to the raw data and documentation files for the Census and Property Survey for Florentine Domains and the City of Verona in Fifteenth Century Italy, also known as the Catasto study. Summary: The data were coded during 1966 to 1976 from the official manuscripts of the tax declarations (Campioni) in the fifteenth century Italy. For each household, one person was assigned as the 'fiscal head', the individual primarily responsible for the tax. Data for each household include name of fiscal head, type of dwelling, animal ownership, occupation of fiscal head, value of public and private investments, deductions, and tax.
  • The Henry A. Murray Research Center of Radcliffe College is a center for research on the changing lives of American women. The center's primary purpose is to promote the use of existing social science data to explore human development and social change. It also promotes the secondary analysis of longitudinal, qualitative data archived at the center. The center's collection focuses on human development across the life span, social change, and the lives of women. Data sets within the collection are available for reanalysis, replication, and longitudinal follow-up.

Internet Data Resources for Social Scientists (Cornell Institute for Social Scientists)
A very useful, well-organized, browsable list.
http://www.ciser.cornell.edu/info/datasource.shtml

The Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG)the Institute for Learning and Research Technology at the University of Bristol presents a collection of Web sites on statistics.
http://sosig.esrc.bris.ac.uk/statistics/

United Nations Crime and Justice Information Network (UNCJIN) Statistics and Research Sources
http://www.uncjin.org/Statistics/statistics.html

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Data and Statistics Gateways & Databases - INTERNATIONAL

CESSDA (Council of European Social Science Data Archives) Integrated Data Catalogue
Searchable data archives for France, Denmark, the UK, Norway, Sweden, Israel, Netherlands, Hungary, Germany, and ICPSR. Leads to data that is not necessarily publicly available.
http://dasun3.essex.ac.uk/Cessda/IDC/

Development Gateway
A gateway to national and international organizations that offer data, or information about data, at their sites. http://www.developmentgateway.org/DataStatistics

International Data Base (IDB)
A data bank containing statistical tables of demographic and socio-economic data for all countries of the world. Contains the IDB online total population aggregation and summary demographic data. Allows users to download the IDB program and data. Lists the type of data available in the IDB, such as migration, marital status, literacy, labor force, income, and ethnicity.
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idbnew.html

OFFSTATS - Official Statistics on the Web
Searchable by country, region, and topic. Free and easily accessible statistics from official sources. Current data/ Time series are frequently available/ Many data are downloadable as text or spreadsheet files.
http://www2.auckland.ac.nz/lbr/stats/offstats/OFFSTATSmain.htm

The UK Data Archive (UKDA) "is a resource centre that acquires, disseminates, preserves, and promotes the largest collection of digital data in the social sciences and humanities in the United Kingdom. Its primary aim is to support secondary use of quantitative and qualitative data for research and learning." You need to register for a UK Data Archive account if you wish to analyze or download UK restricted data. You do not need a UK Data Archive account to search for and view the catalogue records. Searchable or browsable for up to 10 categories simultaneously (using BIRON).
http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/
The UK Data Archive can help users locate and acquire important data from other Archives within Europe and Worldwide for cross-national, comparative research. Information on several key series is available through the UKDA's online catalogue, and through these pages:
European Data Archives http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/findingData/map.asp
Other Data Archives Worldwide http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/findingData/map3.asp

UN/ECE Statistical Division Web Site
Leads to international organizations and national statistical agencies of the ECE member countries where data may be found.
http://www.unece.org/stats/links.htm
Also a listing of international statistical agencies at --http://www.census.gov/main/www/stat_int.html

Statistical Resources on the Web Foreign Government Data Sources (U.Mich. Documents Ctr.)
http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/stforeig.html

United Nations Population Information Network
A guide to population information on UN system web sites. http://www.un.org/popi/data.html

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Data and Statistics - UNITED STATES

American FactFinder
A data access system that will find and retrieve population, economic, housing, and geographic information from some of the U.S. Census Bureau's largest data sets. Online mapping tool. http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/BasicFactsServlet

Crime Mapping Resource Center (National Institute of Justice) Web Links
Links to agencies with data/maps on the web.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/cmrc/weblinks/welcome.html

EconData.Net is designed to help data users quickly gain access to relevant state and substate socioeconomic data.
http://econdata.net/

FedStats: One Stop Shopping for Federal Statistics
The Federal Interagency Council on Statistical Policy maintains this site to provide easy access to the full range of statistics and information produced by these over 70 federal government agencies for public use.
http://www.fedstats.gov/

The Massachusetts Electronic Atlas allows users to display information about Massachusetts. The user can choose a geographic area, select data layers to appear on the maps, turn layers on and off, zoom in, zoom out or pan, and download the maps and associated numeric datasets. Online mapping tool.
http://icg.harvard.edu/%7Emaps/maatlas.htm

Social Statistics Briefing Room
The purpose of this service is to provide easy access to current Federal social statistics. It provides links to information produced by a number of Federal agencies. All of the information included in the Social Statistics Briefing Room is maintained and updated by the statistical units of those agencies. All the estimates for the indicators presented in the Federal Statistics Briefing Rooms are the most currently available values. (Crime Demography Education Health)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/fsbr/ssbr.html

State of the Cities Data Systems (SOCDS)
The SOCDS provides data for individual Metropolitan Areas, Central Cities, and Suburbs (U.S.).
http://socds.huduser.org/

The State of the Nation's Cities: A Comprehensive Database on American Cities and Suburbs (Center for Urban Policy Research, Rutgers Univ.) Database on 77 American cities and suburbs. Employment and economic development, demographic measures, housing and land use, income and poverty, and a host of other health, social, and environmental indicators. Data files are available for download in several formats.
http://wyly.rutgers.edu/WylyWeb/Data/SONC30/sonc30.html

U.S. Census Bureau's Mapping and Cartographic Resources
A gateway of sorts.
http://tiger.census.gov/

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Historical Data & Statistics

Great Britain Historical Database Online (registration required)
A database of British nineteenth and twentieth century statistics. Referencing of spatial units.
http://hds.essex.ac.uk/gbh.stm

Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (Historical Census Projects University of Minnesota)
IPUMS-USA is a coherent national census database spanning 1850 to 1990. IPUMS-International is a new project dedicated to collecting and distributing census data from around the world. Registration required.
http://www.ipums.umn.edu

United States Historical Census Data Browser
Tool for browsing ICPSR data files which describe the people and the economy of the US for each state and county from 1790 to 1960. Download through ICPSR (institutional subn. required).
http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/census/

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Geographical Data Online & Mapping

ArcData Online is ESRI's Internet Mapping and Data Site. It contains a wide assortment of geographic information that users can access to create map images and download data. Some data is free; there is a cost for others. ESRI is the producer of the GIS software, ArcView.
http://www.esri.com/data/online/index.html

ArcData Online U.S. Census Demographic Data
Access demographic data from the U.S. Census Bureau to create atlas maps of information about the United States of America (USA) and its people. Create thematic maps at the state, county, census tract, and block group level. Data can be downloaded.
http://www.esri.com/data/online/tiger/usdemog.html

Demographic Data Viewer (CIESIN)
Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network. DDViewer provides rapid data mapping, viewing and analysis to the internet community. This interactive mapping tool enables users to select geographic areas, specify variables to map, specify map outlay parameters and color assignments. A map image is created on the fly for each query and a descriptive summary statistics report is provided along with the image.
http://sedac.ciesin.org/plue/ddviewer/htmls/whtst.html

EnviroMapper
http://maps.epa.gov/enviromapper/

GIS Data Depot provides access to more than 2 terabytes of geospatial data. Not all of the data is available for free download (i.e., State-wide or County bundles). All the currently available data is freely downloadable in the Countywide areas. Some areas of the site designated as "Statewide" contain bundles which are not downloadable.
http://www.gisdatadepot.com

GIS Data Download (from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency)
http://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/cmap/data/index.html

MassGIS manages the state's geographic database and produces maps and related materials.
http://www.magnet.state.ma.us/mgis

National Atlas of the United States
"Delivers easy to use, map-like views of America's natural and sociocultural landscapes, digitally. You can use the online, interactive National Atlas of the United States to preview the map layers. All map layers can be downloaded at no cost using file transfer protocol. The updated National Atlas is designed to provide a reliable summary of national-scale geographical information. Though it cannot provide detailed map information, the Atlas directs users to other sources for this information."
http://nationalatlas.gov/index.html

National Mapping Information - Products and services from USGS
http://mapping.usgs.gov/

See also American FactFinder and The Massachusetts Electronic Atlas (both described above)

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