This short tutorial is intended to help you understand the different elements of the Library Research Guide for Mapping and GIS resources. We’ll start at the library website home page (www.library.wisc.edu), where you’ll find a quick link to the research guides at the right. You can browse the guides by subject, or search by topic. Search for “GIS” in the search bar. The first link takes me directly to the guide.
The GIS guide in organized in a series of tabs. You can explore them all on your own, we’ll focus on just a few of them in this tutorial.
GIS at UW Madison
The GIS at UW-Madison section has helpful information about campus resources for training and academic courses, access to software and data, technical assistance and helpdesk questions, and labs on campus where GIS software is available.
GIS Software
The software section of the guide illustrates the variety of GIS and spatial analysis or mapping software packages, and how they can be accessed. Some of the freeware listed here may be worth your time to investigate. QGIS and other software not requiring a specific hardware platform can be more easily accessible sometimes than ArcGIS, depending on your needs.
Online Map Resources
The online map resources section will help you find interesting content (often historic in nature) that you may wish to incorporate into a research project or course assignment. Here are lists of popular clearinghouses with digital versions of maps… which can often be downloaded at high resolutions, and georeferenced for inclusion in a geospatial project.
Finding geospatial data
Perhaps the most important section focused on geospatial data resources. Here is a list of popular online repositories, clearinghouses, and websites for locating geospatial data. The guide is split into three sections, grouped by geography. You’ll see resources for WI, US and International datasets listed here. The Robinson Map Library collects and archives local data across all WI counties, and makes the data available for download via a campus geoportal called GeoData@UW-Madison. Use this collection if you are interested in getting information like tax parcels and assessment data, streets, buildings, land use and zoning, addressing/e911, and other basemap or infrastructure data produced across the state. The rest of the resources listed here for the United States, other states and countries around the world will help focus your research.
Numeric Data Resources
“Numeric” or statistical data is listed separately, because it inherently isn’t always considered “geospatial” in nature. Oftentimes students look for interesting statistics that they want to visualize by creating a map. The libraries offer many research databases for you to search, including ProQuest Statistical Datasets, and Reference USA. Both of these research datasets include compilations of both public domain as well as commercial statistical data you can export as a table or a shapefile. Census data is a very common element in student mapping projects. It is comprehensive, very versatile, it can be mapped at varying levels of granularity. The table here shows resources where census data can be obtained. American FactFinder is the official portal for both the decennial census and American Community survey data. Be sure to check out the Library Research Guide on American Factfinder if you want to use that resource to obtain population and housing statistics.
Robinson map Library, GeoData, and BTAA portal
The final three tabs in the GIS research guide take you directly to some of the resources described above for quick access. These include the Robinson Map Library website, the GeoData@WI geoportal, and the Big Ten Geoportal.
The map library is part of the UW Geography Department, and we are here to support you in your coursework and degree program at UW-Madison. We are located in Science Hall and serve the campus community in the subject areas of GIS, cartography, maps, data, and remote sensing. Be sure to take a look at what we offer in our collections and services, and please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions. Contact information is found on the staff page. In summary, use the mapping and GIS research guide to discover resources for locating geospatial data, finding out about training and education, and locating specific resources on the UW campus to help you in your studies or research.