2012 GIS Day library events include:

• Where on the Homewood campus (and surrounding areas)?
• A map identification contest. Can you name all 10 locations?
• Mystery Maps
• Another map identification contest. Can you identify what is being represented?
• Where’s Waldo Scavenger Hunt 
• How well do you know the Homewood campus?
• Are you smarter than a fifth grader?
• Check your knowledge with this GIS quiz.
• JHU Interact Map Demonstration
• Be the first to test the new JHU interactive map! Whether you're finding the closest food spots on campus and off or planning the route to your next class, we want your input!
• Check out a GPS unit to collect data to add to the map – we can show you how to enter emergency lights, bike racks, directories and geo facts, etc.
• Digital Maps and Atlas
• Take a look at the original cartography that was transformed into Maryland’s largest collection of digital map images – all available via the library’s digital repository, JScholarship.

Ralph Nader is often credited as the inspiration for GIS Day as he promotes the grassroots efforts of people to take a role in making our world a better place to live. Now an international celebration, GIS Day includes thousands of events around the globe with the heaviest concentrations in North America and Europe.

Via GIS & Data Services on A-level of the Eisenhower Library, students and faculty have access to a rich array of software, data and staff expertise.  For more details see two of our most popular library guides: GIS and Maps and Data and Statistics.

In its current iteration, the wall supports three programs:

• KineBallRun (a new take on a game from the movie Tron)
• PicFlyer (images from such sources as the Roman de la Rose Digital Library and the Levy Sheet Music Collection that you can sort through and zoom in on)
• ImageStorm (lets you make multiple images mirror your movements)

Each of these programs utilizes Microsoft Kinect motion-sensing input for multi-user gestural input. Moving the body and performing gestures with arms and hands enables multiple users to fly through groups of images, zoom and pan on a single image, or control the players in a game. The developers are interested in examining "natural" gestures, that is, how a person would normally try to turn a page or move an image.

Data visualization is a growing area of research that is being reported in journals such as Information Visualization and the Journal of Visualization.  Researchers are using this technology for everything from training doctors for telerobotic surgery to flash flooding research analysis. The Balaur wall is extensible in terms of handling new content, functionality and integration with other programs. The developers want to engage with students and faculty to suggest ideas for future development. Balaur is available in the BLC 24 hours per day, so drop by soon. Find out more about its development in this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

For background information on US Presidential election, check out

• CQ Press Guide to US Elections,  a library subscription database that includes an encyclopedia of US elections, facts and figures, and lots of data from the 1800s to 2004.

There are numerous election news outlets. Here are some reputable sources:

• C-Span - Campaign 2012
• Roll Call: the newspaper of Capital Hill since 1955
• CNN - PoliticalTicker

For summary and comparison of candidates' positions on key issues:

• ProCon.org - 2012 Elections: it presents summaries of presidential candidates' positions on key issues for easy comparison.

For fact checking:

• FactCheck.org: a non-partisan, non-profit organization that monitors the factual accuracy of claims made by political players.
• ProPublica's 2012 Presidential Campaign Reading Guides: it investigates some of the best stories on the candidates, "so you can get beyond the day-to-day coverage and get a sense of each candidate's actual record."

For influence of money on US politics:

• OpenSecrets.org - Money in US politics: from the Center for Responsive Politics, a Non-partisan group whose mission is to inform citizens about how money in politics affects their lives, empower voters and activists by providing unbiased information, and advocate for a transparent and responsive government.
• Political MoneyLine: a library subscription database that covers all aspects of political money, with searchable data on political donations, Super PACs and more.

Interested in how other people are thinking? Check out the polling sites:

• Gallup: Election 2012
• Gallup: Accuracy Record in Presidential Elections
• Pew Research Center: Election 2012

Never voted before? Here is how you can vote this time:

• Project Vote Smart: a non-partisan volunteer organization that provides information on candidates as well as local voting information.
• Maryland State Board of Elections: the official election site of the State of Maryland.

If you have any questions, you can always count on Ask a Librarian. Just type in your question and we'll get back to you shortly. You can also consult our research guide for Political Science and Policy Studies for more information on elections and US politics in general.

• Print items circulated from MSEL: 154,044
• Eisenhower Express, books delivered: 7,424
• Eisenhower Express, articles scanned: 6,197
• E-Reserves: 22,383 PDFs posted for 932 courses
• Print reserves were checked out 8,510 times
• Interlibrary Loan borrowed 17,303 items from other libraries for JHU patrons
• Interlibrary Loan loaned 12,304 items to other libraries

So, be sure to use our resources to your heart's content. Providing you what you need to succeed is what we're all about...you can count on it, AH HA HA HA HA!

There are 11 levels of geography for the state of Maryland: Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), Counties, County Subdivisions, Places, Census Tracts, Block Groups, Blocks, Congressional Districts, School Districts, State Legislative Districts, and Zip Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs). You need to know that data is not necessarily available for all Census data products at all of these geographic levels (data may just not be collected, counts are too small to be meaningful and/or presents a confidentiality problem). Baltimore City itself is a County and a Place, and it does have its own Census Tracts (most commonly used for small area analysis) and Block Groups.

It's important to have a basic understanding of Census geography before you start working with Census data, and essential before ever beginning to work with ArcGIS.

The Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance (BNIA) has developed a method to create Baltimore Community Statistical Areas that are stable enough to track changes in city conditions and demographics over time (longitudinal analysis). As neighborhoods can shift and change as well as vary in size, these BCSAs do comprise more than one neighborhood.

click to enlarge

GIS is mapping software that is used to create maps from a wide variety of data. Who at Hopkins is using GIS and how? The GIS and Data Services Unit in the Eisenhower Library has created a space to display finished maps that students, researchers, and faculty have produced. Where can you see them? Visit A Level in Eisenhower Library; the maps are on the long wall that leads into the GIS and Data Services Unit.

The opening display features maps created by students in the Institute for Policy Studies and the Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Liveable Future. Visit the display and see how GIS can be used to formulate policy, illustrate election turnout, and map food deserts in Baltimore City. The maps show what people have done and hopefully, will inspire others to use GIS in their course work or research.

If you have created a map that you would like to have up on the GIS Display Wall, contact Bonni Wittstadt. For more information about the software visit the GIS and Maps guide.

Being fair to the Census Bureau, the old AFF could have used a facelift, but why change the mechanics completely? The old AFF prompted people to start at the most crucial starting point - CHOOSE GEOGRAPHY FIRST. Census data availability is always affected by the size of the area you want to study. At smaller geographies (tract, block group), less data is available due to confidentiality issues (and sometimes things just aren't collected at that lower level). If you are planning on using decennial census data or American Community Survey data on the new AFF, here's what you should do - pick your geography, then pick any topics you want  to limit your search by (this includes specific population characteristics such as race  because the Race and Ethnicity filter can be too narrow), then pick your dataset (also listed under Topics). If you're going to be looking at one table or just a couple tables at large geography, the new AFF isn't so bad. The problems start when you want to download multiple tables matching on geography to use that data with ArcGIS or any other statistical package.

Here is my advice to you - if you're going to use decennial census data or the American Community Survey, use Social Explorer instead. You will notice that it has a very familiar and friendly interface. It also has decennial census data back to the beginning of the decennial census, as well as some other goodies. It took me 3 minutes to read a downloaded file (all Baltimore City Tracts, multiple tables) into Stata. Seriously, 3 minutes. If I were to do the same within the new AFF (and I tried) I would have to remove all the excess text at the top of my file, rename all the variables to unique names, merge discrete tables together, and then write a program to read the file into a statistical package. If you're up for the challenge, I admire you - I chose the simpler path (are you listening Census Bureau??).

Social Explorer is an online research tool that provides quick and easy access to decennial census data from 1789 to 2010 and the Religious Congregations and Membership Study. The interface is much easier to use than that of the new American FactFinder. In addition it has annual updates to the American Community Survey. If the data exists, Social Explorer can create reports and maps at all geographic levels.

SimplyMap is web-based mapping and data analysis software that allows you to use and interact with complex data, in order to create profession-quality thematic maps and reports using extensive demographic, business, and marketing data. In addition to the basic software and data, the library has included the following components: Dun & Bradstreet 30 Million for business listings, the Simmons Data package and the Nielsen Claritas PRIZM. From the welcome page you can create a personal account that allows you to save your work. The library's subscription allows for five concurrent users, so please remember to logout when you are finished.

Have fun -- try them out!

Much of the data collected by the federal government was already available and accessible to the public, but not necessarily in a readily useable or guided application format (e.g. American FactFinder). Data.gov also allows something that traditional government agency sites do not allow – the opportunity to create a dataset “view,” suggest data to be added to the collection, and forums for discussion. I consider Data.gov to be an upgrade of the old Fedstats.gov website (seriously look at the difference between the two!).

The Open Data Initiative has also spread to various states and cities across the country as well. Baltimore City has its own that is based on the same platform as Data.gov. Across the world more and more government statistical agencies are following suit – such as Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, Kenya and even Saudi Arabia.  See the Open Data Sites section of Data.gov for more information.

Expanding beyond government collected data are initiatives to open access to government funded data. Specifically, the National Science Foundation (NSF) is requiring all those who apply for NSF research grants to have a formal data management plan as part of their applications. Here at Hopkins, the Entrepreneurial Library Program and the Data Conservancy have launched a joint Data Management Planning Service to support Hopkins researchers seeking NSF funding.

Recently I had the opportunity to attend the ICPSR Official Representative’s meeting at the University of Michigan. During this meeting I attended a fascinating symposium on the “Next 50 Years of Social Science Data.” The primary speaker for this symposium was Myron Gutmann, former ICPSR Director and current director of NSF’s Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE). The main points of his presentation and the comments from the symposium panel reflect that we will likely see more federal funding agencies requiring proper data stewardship and archiving for future science. In addition, with more open data, there is belief that disciplinary lines will begin to blur, and more inter- and multidisciplinary work that takes research in new directions will arise.

For Open Access Week 2011 (October 24-30) the Scholarly Communications Group is sponsoring a quiz about Open Access. A Quiz with PRIZES!  Read our other blog posts, answer the questions correctly, and you will be eligible for prizes. Prizes are 3 $20 Barnes and Noble gift cards and a $60 gift card to The Dizz. The quiz will be available until Oct. 31.

Datasets that fall under this category are those that generally require some sort of formal agreement with the data provider to ensure the security of the data while it is in the researcher's possession. These data are usually restricted access because they present a higher risk of deductive disclosure due to data detail. For graduate students especially, applying for use of restricted-data can be difficult because they do not always have a private office where they can store and use the data. 

If you are interested in using this room, please see our access policy or contact Jennifer Darragh for more information.