News from the UoNDERGROUND - A blog from the UofO Science Library
September 2010
A visualization of Scientific Inquiry from the 1500 forward. This graphic is time of research by subject area but playfully based on the classic map of the the London Subway or Tube
http://www.crispian.net/ScienceMapv0.37.png
August 2010
The Client based system for SciFinder Scholar is winding down to an end. In the future access to SciFinder Scholar will be by web-access only:
From CAS
"Dear SciFinder ® Key Contact, Due to increasing popularity and new development of the web version of SciFinder, CAS is announcing the discontinuation of the client version of SciFinder on June 30, 2011 for all U.S. and Canadian academic institutions."
October 2006
New Biology titles available through the "FindText" box
Bioinspiration & biomimetics
Biomedical Materials
Physical biology
Physics in medicine & biology
Environmental Research Letters
Journal of neural engineering
There are now thirty updated physics titles now available through "FindText."
The following astrophyiscal journals are now available for free the internet. Please look a the list what is available
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/journals_service.html
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/bulletins_service.html
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/proceedings_service.html
September 2006
The Knight Library opened an exhibit on sundials that focused one type in particular that faculty members on the UO campus want to build.
August 2006
We are please to announce new online access to the following journals
July 2006
The library now has online access to about 100 computer programing books from Safari. See the following link for access or look for individual title in the library catalog:
http://proquest.safaribooksonline.com/
June 2006
We have now started a new membership with Faculty of 1000 Biology, a database service that provides ranked information regarding the most influential recent articles in many fields of biology. Please search for Faculty of 1000 in our catalog.
May 2006
The Science Library has now subscribed to Faculty of 1000 (Biology). This is a rating service where scientist rate the importance of recently published research articles. The service is a great way to keep up on current trends in biology and is a guide for interested undergraduate and graduate students to learn about significant research and researchers in the students' potential fields of interest
New on-line access to Heredity v. 96, 2006 - present http://0-www.nature.com.janus.uoregon.edu/hdy/archive/index.html
and Nature Reviews Neuroscience v. 7, 2006 - present
http://0-www.nature.com.janus.uoregon.edu/nrn/archive/index.html
The following Geological Society of America titles have been activated in FindText:
Geology, v. 34, 2006 - present (Not yet active)
GSA Bulletin, v. 118, 2006 - present (Not yet active)
Geosphere, v. 1, 2005 - present
GSA Today, v. 11, 2001 - present
The following Royal Soceity of New Zealand titles have been activated in FindText:
New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research
New Zealand Journal of Botany
New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics
New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research
New Zealand journal of Crop and Horticultural Science
New Zealand journal of Zoology
April 2006
An emphasis to get resources for Dr. Peter Wetherwax's Neotropical Ecology Class in Ecuador has led the purchase of several new books on Ecuadorian flora and fauna.
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
Going Digital with Government Information
As a former federal employee, and now as a state employee in my third state, I created my share of digital government information, particularly in the realm of spatially tagged data for geographic information systems (GIS). The State released much of this information as what is commonly referred to as grey literature, or to invoke a less used phrase, grey data. These various agencies sent reports to other state and federal agencies or posted them on state sponsored web pages in the name of plant conversation. Finding this information hasn’t always been easy, but knowing that such data and reports exist is certainly beneficial at times because, who knows when a person might need it.
Recently, I found my self in the position of wanting spatially tagged government information instead of producing it. With a spouse that had interviewed for, but not yet been hired for, a position 60 miles away from my position, and as a recent addition to the Oregon community and with and a new little daughter, our family had a big decision of where to live. To solve this problem I immediately started to collect spatial datasets of the area. The Oregon spatial data portal( 1) linked me to datasets on urban growth boundaries, state and federal congressional districts, school districts, and a host of other GIS map data such as geology, precipitation, and federal land ownership, that were well beyond my immediate interest. The congressional and school district maps served as a backdrop to more specific information that I had on particular houses for sale.
The paper map we had of Lane County, Oregon, while nice for navigation, didn’t provide a good aerial overview of what each neighborhood is like. For example, was a house of interest near an unmapped quarry? Were there 200 houses packed into the area or only 100? Was there a chemical plant hidden in a nearby wooded lot? Digital aerial photos or digital orthographic quarter-quads (DOQQS), given that they are recent, provide a wonderful insight in the organization of a neighborhood ( 2).
Google Earth ( 3) which used government and private imagery, was a wonderful resource for some areas but many local Oregon addresses; even the entire city of Richmond, Virginia, where I just left was unavailable at this time. However, neither the DOQQS nor Google’s set of images provides much information on how the land might change. Digital land use maps and zoning maps produced at the level of county and city governments ( 4) can provide much more valuable information in this area. From these maps, a person can predict if a nearby vacant lot will more likely become a factory, an apartment building, or a new housing development. There is nothing like finding out that the local wooded “park” almost against your backyard is slated to is really zoned for commercial use and will likely become a shopping center at some future time.
Another dataset that I reviewed was compiled of spatially tagged crime data ( 5) from the City of Eugene whereby I could view crime statistics for circled areas with 0.25, 0.5 and 1.0 mile radii centered on houses that we were interested in buying. I could see how many burglaries or car thefts occurred within a specific distance or tell if the local neighborhood was safe but the greater area was less desirable. One area had 24 personal assaults, while a second area had far fewer assaults (6) within the same 11month period.
Additionally, after Hurricane Gaston dropped 15 inches of rain in our Richmond area a year ago, I had to check to check the FEMA flood insurance maps to see which houses were in the 100 or 500 year flood zones ( 6). Most of the City of Richmond is well above the flood plain of the James River, but even so, Gaston created what was considered greater than a once in 500 year flood and left many people with wet houses in areas well out the designated flood zones. The damaged paled in comparison to the damage people experienced after the recent storms in the Gulf, but none-the-less, these people lost the use of their homes. Also available from USGS are stream level data ( 7) that allowed me to compare how flooded an area became relative to a monitored stream height. This was useful during a very recent local flooding event in December 2005. Furthermore, not only can I view flood hazards but I also could review earthquake hazards ( 8) and I we were looking at the coast, tsunami hazards ( 9).
With the potential problems identified it was time to see if a particular house was a good buy. Accessing tax and plat maps ( 10) that allow the user to view the size of a lot and neighboring lots. Data are often provided on the assessed value of parcel of land and what it has been purchased for and assessed in prior years. This also gave me a chance to judge the veracity of the seller and his or her real estate agent. Municipal GIS servers on web pages such as the City of Eugene also provide information on distances to hospitals, firehouses, schools, and work ( 11). This can in turn provide savings with the insurance agent who wants to know how soon a fire truck can get to you residence or your average weekly commute with your car.
Reviewing spatially tagged census data ( 12) are another amazing way to analyze the makeup of various neighborhoods. In contrast to the local area, we would need to move to Portland in order to gain the ethnic diversity that we enjoyed in Richmond. However, we can still aim for areas of higher diversity that meet our other requirements. I am also able to look a the various school districts, get report cards for schools in those districts, map congressional district boundaries,
Finally, since my wife and I are both biologists, we tend to seek out particular natural areas that support rare habitats. Digital information from the State Natural Heritage program allows me to look at vegetation maps of the whole state while additional data can lead me to important plant communities ( 13). Likewise digital elevations models (DEMs) ( 14), and digital geology maps ( 15) help me to understand why a particularly rare habitat might have formed. All of this said, as a librarian, I want to provide digital government information access to my patrons, but outside of the office, I am a digital government information user.
References
1. Oregon Geospatial Data Clearinghouse: Complete alphabetical listing. Oregon Geospatial Enterprise Office. http://www.gis.state.or.us/data/alphalist.html
Oregon Spatial data portal.
http://virtual-oregon.nacse.org/statewide/
2. Map and Aerial photography collection (Eugene East (44123a1). University of Oregon. http://libweb.uoregon.edu/map/map_section/map_section_counties/displaymap.php?ohio_code=44123a1
3. Google Earth http://earth.google.com/
4. Reedsport Buildable Lands Inventory (BLI), Preliminary map of vacant lands by zoning class (includes constrained land). Umpqua Regional Council of Governments. http://www.ur-cog.cog.or.us/images/rebli2.jpg
5. Welcome to the City of Eugene Crime Statistics: Reported crimes by distance.
6. FEMA issued flood maps. Map Service Center.
7. USGS 14164700 Cedar Creek at Springfield, OR. Water Resources, Real-time data, Oregon, stream gauge data.
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/or/nwis/uv?format=gif&period=31&site_no=14164700
8. USGS earthquake hazard program: Recent earthquake activity in the USA: Oregon. Earthquake activity for the last 7 days.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsUS/Maps/US10/37.47.-125.-115.html
9. Tsunami escape plan for Gardiner.
http://www.ur-cog.cog.or.us/images/gartsu.jpg
10. Lane County, Oregon: Assessment and Taxation tax maps online. Eugene Tax Map
http://www.co.lane.or.us/TaxMap/Search.aspx
11. Welcome to the City of Eugene Neighborhood maps, Neighborhood view.
12. U.S Census Bureau, American Factfinder Geographic Comparison table: GCT-P6. Race and Hispanic or Latino: 2000. Census 2000 Summary file 1 )SF1 _ 100 Percent Data. Lane County Oregon—Census tract.
Mapped data.
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ThematicMapFramesetServlet?_bm=y&-zip=97403&-PANEL_ID=tm_result&-_MapEvent=zoomToAddress&-tm_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U_M00083&-ds_label=Census%202000%20Summary%20File%201%20(SF%201)%20100-Percent%20Data&-street=&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U&-tm_config=|b=50|l=en|t=4001|zf=0.0|ms=thm_def|dw=0.4342240257377688|dh=0.2269717387595289|dt=gov.census.aff.domain.map.EnglishMapExtent|if=gif|cx=-122.6863|cy=45.5088|zl=5|pz=5|bo=|bl=|ft=350:349:335:389:388:332:331|fl=381:403:204:380:369:379:368|g=01000US|ds=DEC_2000_SF1_U|sb=50|tud=false|db=850|mn=0|mx=70|cc=1|cm=1|cn=5|cb=|um=Percent|pr=1|th=DEC_2000_SF1_U_M00083&-city=&-CONTEXT=tm&-redoLog=false&-errMsg=&-states=
December 2005
Novermber 2005
GIS DAY Poster Presentation at the Night Library (November 16th)
Novel use of GIS for information management and retrieval in the academic library.
Dean Walton
Science Librarian, University of Oregon
This poster will show two novel ways that geographic information systems (GIS) can serve librarians and patrons. In the first instance, library personnel can review spatially tagged library resources (e.g. The geology of Southern York County, Maine) by mapping these objects. This process can quickly show how many resources cover a specific geographic area (Figure 1) compared to the same data in tabular form (Table 1), thereby showing the strengths and weaknesses of a collection covering a broader geographic area (e.g. geology of Maine).
Expanding this concept beyond a static map to an interactive system allows a librarian to create a searchable catalog. In this instance, a patron can search on a topic with a spatial component by pointing to any geographical locality on a computer generated map and retrieve resources on that area. In the interactive example for this poster, patrons will be able retrieve the titles, authors, call numbers and book images concerning the flora an area of the United States. This is a particularly useful tool because many subjects with relevant spatial information (e.g. plant distribution patterns or the global distribution of languages) do not always follow geopolitical boundaries and are therefore difficult to catalog and retrieve solely on place names.
Introduction
The field of GIS has expanded quite rapidly in the last 10 years. Librarians in only recent years have begun to support community users of GIS by collecting and cataloging spatial data sets as well as providing access to expensive analytical software. However, librarians have been even slower to adapt to using GIS as a tool within their own library systems. Certainly, library system administrators looking to place libraries were some of librarians using GIS as a tool themselves (Orendorf and Kacmar, 1996). GIS, however, is not just limited to the role of a planning tool but can be used a collection development tools and a tool for retrieval of library resources. Any resource that has a spatial data component such as a political or other geographical boundary can be associated with a spatial data file and retrieved with the click of a button on a map of the world regardless of how large or small the spatial area is on the map (Oliveira, Goncalves, and Medeiros, 1997). In addition, tabular data that have a spatial component may reveal obvious spatial patterns when viewed on a map.
October 2005
After driving across the country from Richmond, Virginia and after a major car repair job in some microscopic Kansas town, I finally arrived in Eugene. Its great to be here!
