Laurie N. Taylor January 22nd, 2008
The Mobile World Congress is coming up soon (February 11-14) and it should lead to exciting new advances for libraries, and general mobile users as well. A recent AP story covered the rise of geotagging photos and creating mashups from the geographically referenced photos. While this is wonderful for small projects and for much larger projects (of the scale that will later build into Web 3.0 or the Semantic Web), it’s also great for the middle area of development where academic institutions like libraries are slowly building geographical information into our collections.
It’s great to see a friend’s vacation images tagged with locations, but it’s much more interesting to see all of the historical photos from a library or museum collection all geographically referenced so that everyone can browse spatially through the photos of the past. In order to make this possible, the collectio owner’s either need to build all of that information after the fact–which is a monumental task, especially for underfunded academic institutions–or that information needs to be collected in a systematic manner when it’s created and that’s where the Mobile World Congress can help.
The Mobile World Congress showcases the work of the Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) Association, which serves over 82% of the world’s mobile users. The GSM Association is currently focused on enhancing services for existing users and on enabling access for new users by delivering services to new areas. This means that it’s poised to help academic institutions on two fronts, by enabling more services like georeferencing photos for more users and by bring phone service to more areas creating access to extend and use research. With seminars on topics like “Open Connectivity” which seeks universal standards for interoperability, the work at the Mobile World Congress will definitely help some of the current or coming needs for libraries and museums in terms of cataloging, describing, and connecting material to users within the best possible interfaces for usability and extensibility. The GSMA Global Mobile Awards categories show some of the areas being explored, and hopefully soon more will be added that reflect the growing needs and possibilities for connecting with library and museum archives.
Laurie N. Taylor November 1st, 2007
While the map linked from this slideshow isn’t actually accurate because nearly all of the images are from the University of Florida’s original Library, Smathers East, and I spread them out for easier viewing, the map does accurately show why there’s reason to be excited because Picasa has improved once again. Not only can the images in Picasa be mapped, the images now show as small icons of the images instead of the generic picture icon, and the individual images can be clicked on and enlarged and they can be played in a slide-show format across the map.
The slideshow with the map is a great way to embed complicated information (this picture taken here, before this picture which was here, and after these pictures which were taken in this sequence in these places) and makes it allow easily visible. Plus, this is all available online without requiring any additional software so it’s even easier for users. This sort of elegant design is exactly what more programs need and it’s exactly what the Digital Library Center needs for many of our projects. We need ways that our users can easily access our materials in ways that contextualize the materials. While we still need more functionality because we need the same material-mapping onto a real map and we need it added to a chronological mapping system so we can locate materials in space and time, and over time (years, time periods, timeline-event markers). Other downloadable applications like Google Earth offer us more functionality and almost as much ease for our users, and each step toward more data integration and ease takes us closer to our current goal of modeling systems for a historical virtual world that users can see through time and space.
Laurie N. Taylor October 18th, 2007
The Spatial Information Services Unit of the George A. Smathers Libraries is hosting UF’s inaugural GIS Day on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 from 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. This all day event will showcase the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to the academic community and the public. The event will include guest speakers from UF’s Geomatics Department and the Geoplan Center as well as interactive geocaching opportunities. It will be an opportunity to meet with professional and expert users of GIS technology. Lectures and poster sessions are open to the public and unrestricted. No registration fee required for any session or activity. Registration is highly recommended for the geocaching game since space is limited. All sessions will be held in Smathers Library (East) Room.
A detailed agenda and further information along with online registration for the geocaching game can be found online or contact the GIS Spatial Information Services Unit. Held each year on the Wednesday of National Geographic Society’s Geography Awareness Week (November 11–17 in 2007), GIS Day is a global event that celebrates GIS technology, the innovative technology that uses geography to bring countless benefits to the world. Further information can be found online. The Smathers Libraries will provide an opportunity for those curious about GIS to see its applications in action. A GIS is a computer-based mapping tool that takes information from a database about a location, such as streets, buildings, water features, and terrain, and turns it into visual layers. The ability to see geographic features on a map gives users a better understanding of a particular location, enabling planners, analysts, and others to make informed decisions about their communities.