MAGIC News & Updates

Follow us on Outside the Neatline!

2011-01-27T19:18:00.006-05:00

We are migrating the news and updates from the Map and Geographic Information Center to the Outside the Neatline Blog. This transition allows us to combine updates from the Connecticut State Data Center with the Map and Geographic Information Center. The Outside the Neatline blog features updates on US Census related resources/datasets, new data offerings, grant opportunities, and more. To keep on the latest news, updates and resources

Thanks for following this blog and join at the Outside the Neatline Blog.

NESTVAL Geobowl Champions

2010-11-02T11:11:00.000-04:00

Congratulations to the University of Connecticut Department of Geography NESTVAL Geobowl team!

Last Friday on October 29th, Adam Pokusa, Anthony Erstad, Jeff Dunn, Naomi Lazarus, and team captain Brandon Cramer faced 5 other teams representing: University of New Hampshire, Southern Connecticut State University, Central Connecticut State University, Keene State College, and Salem State University.

Left to Right: Adam Pokusa, Anthony Erstad, Jeff Dunn, Naomi Lazarus, and Brandon Cramer.

Team Captain Brandon Cramer accepts the 2010 NESTVAL Geobowl trophy.

Our New Logo

2010-11-01T20:21:00.000-04:00

You may have noticed that our previous logo featuring Jeff & Brandon, has been replaced with a new one. While everyone at MAGIC really liked the past logo, we wanted to open our blog up to additional graduate students, both present and future.

I'd like to thank Thomas Bachant for the design of Outside The Neatlines' new logo! Look for new posts soon!

Connecticut State Data Center Joins MAGIC

2010-10-26T14:22:00.006-04:00

The University of Connecticut Libraries Map and Geographic Information Center - MAGIC is pleased to announce that the Connecticut State Data Center - CtSDC, the public portal for Connecticut Census data, is becoming a part of MAGIC. Over the next few months, the Connecticut State Data Center website will be revised to include more census and related datasets in a number of formats for numeric and geospatial analysis.

More updates will be coming soon. If you have any suggestions and recommendations on how to improve access to US Census data and related datasets for Connecticut, feel free to contact us at magic@uconn.edu

Connecticut Geo-Focus Newsletter - Fall 2010

2010-10-12T16:41:00.007-04:00

The latest issue of the Connecticut Geo-Focus newsletter is now available. In this issue you will find articles and updates on the following topics:

GIS Day - November 17, 2010
AmericaView - establishing ConnecticutView to provide access to remote sensing data
Corn Mazes
Fun Geo
Educational
Staples High School
WINCOG
Daily Stream Flow
Mapped - USGS
Geospatial Technology Competency Model by U.S.D.O.L.
Map the Milky Way
Borne on the Wing

MAGIC GeoCommons Enhancements Coming Soon!

2010-09-24T17:00:00.008-04:00

MAGIC is delighted to announce that the former Map Library Reading Room space, now known as the MAGIC GeoCommons, will receive new furniture and equipment. The upgrading of this space will involve the replacement of the current reading room tables and chairs with new, flexible furniture which will be movable and accommodate a wider range of users. The following digram highlights the configuration for this space with Phase 1.2 and Phase 1.3 scheduled to be completed at the end of Fall Semester 2010.

Enhancements for this space will include:

30 chairs with wheels to enable collaboration
5 tables on wheels which can be reconfigured to accommodate large and small groups
1 collaborative table with 46" LCD screen with laptop connectivity
Addition of laptop connectivity to the existing GeoCommons collaborative table

We want to thank the University of Connecticut Libraries Planning Team for funding the MAGIC GeoCommons space enhancement! Thank you!

For more details on the MAGIC GeoCommons visit: http://magic.lib.uconn.edu/geocommons.html

Fall Semester Workshops @ MAGIC

2010-08-30T11:08:00.011-04:00

If you are interested in learning hands-on about how to create maps for projects, websites, classroom demonstrations or more then consider signing up for one of MAGIC's Fall Workshops. Included below are a complete listing of workshops including days/times and links to register for the workshop.

Google Maps: Basics

Have you seen customized Google Maps and wondered how could I do that? This hands-on workshop will explore how you can create customized Google Maps which you can add to a website or use to showcase your own research.

Date: Friday, September 17, 2010

Time: 4:00pm – 5:00pm

Location: Undergraduate Research Classroom – Level 1 Homer Babbidge Library

[Register for this Workshop]

Google Earth: Basics

Have you ever wondered what Google Earth can do? This hands-on workshop will provide participants with an opportunity to learn how to create virtual tours, explore locations over time, and more all within this freely available application.

Date: Friday, October 22, 2010

Time: 4:00pm – 5:00pm

Location: Undergraduate Research Classroom – Level 1 Homer Babbidge Library

[Register for this Workshop]

Making Maps Online

Want to create a map and share it with colleagues or a class? This hands-on workshop will provide participants with an opportunity to learn how to create maps using ArcGIS.com which can integrate data from multiple sources, be viewed on mobile devices, and create a series of maps to highlight areas of interest for projects and/or your own research.

Date: Friday, November 19, 2010

Time: 4:00pm – 5:00pm

Location: Undergraduate Research Classroom – Level 1 Homer Babbidge Library

[Register for this Workshop]

All workshops are free and available to students, faculty, staff and the general public. Be sure to register early as workshops as enrollment is limited. For a complete listing of all workshops available from the University of Connecticut Libraries visit: http://lib.uconn.edu/instruction/workshop/

Connecticut Geo-Focus Newsletter - Summer 2010

2010-08-09T08:00:00.003-04:00

The latest issue of the Connecticut Geo-Focus newsletter is now available. In this issue you will find articles and updates on the following topics:

Be sure to check out this newsletter!

Topographic Maps Now Available in TIFF Format

2010-08-07T10:07:00.001-04:00

Topographic maps are an extremely valuable resource for researchers and MAGIC is delighted to announce the first release of a series of topographic map options on the MAGIC website. When visiting the MAGIC website, users can click on the Topographic Maps link to view our updated page which includes:

Map Mash-up

USGS 1:24,000 topographic quads for Connecticut
Address search option
Drop down menu which includes topographic map mosaics and aerial photography

Topographic Quadrangle Listing with Download Options

Complete listing of topographic maps by Quadrangle name for Connecticut
Each quadrangle is offered in TIFF format scanned at 300 DPI and georeferenced
JPEG version of each topographic map is also available via Flickr to enable quick viewing and downloading
Mobile Users can access topographic maps via Flickr

There are several enhancements coming to this collection in the coming soon which will add:

Enhanced map mash-up to enable direct downloading of topographic maps
Metadata within Flickr for each map
Metadata for each map on MAGIC's website
Rescans of some maps to resolve issues with the image quality

This is the first collection MAGIC is providing the ability to download the TIFF images directly from our website. We will be adding this functionality to our other collections over the next few months to enable users to have access to full-quality versions of the maps.

Check out this collection at: magic.lib.uconn.edu/topographic_maps.html

MAGIC Website back online

2010-07-29T22:02:00.004-04:00

The updates to the MAGIC website server are complete and the entire site is once again accessible. Thanks for your patience during this outage as we updated this server.

MAGIC Website Outage - July 29 from 5-9pm

2010-07-28T16:59:00.004-04:00

The MAGIC website will be unavailable on July 29, 2010 from 5:00 - 9:00pm in order to preform server maintenance. Included below are additional resources which include aerial photography, maps, and geographic data which will may provide the information you need during this outage:

MAGIC's Historical Maps via Flickr

MAGIC's USGS Topographic Maps via Flickr

MAGIC 2.0 Online Maps

MAGIC WMS (For GIS Users)

We are sorry for any inconvenience this outage my cause and once the website is back online we will post an update on the blog, facebook, and twitter.

MAGIC 2.0 Online Maps Server now available

2010-07-26T11:18:00.004-04:00

The MAGIC 2.0 Online Maps Server, WMS and map mash-ups services are available. The outage was caused by the loss of the network connection to our server, and it appears that everything is now back in order.

MAGIC 2.0 Online Maps Server Down

2010-07-26T10:24:00.004-04:00

The MAGIC 2.0 Online Maps Server which includes services for viewing maps online, map mash-ups, and WMS connections is currently down (as of 7/26/2010 at 10:27am). We are working to resolve this issue and hope to have this service available shortly.

During this outage, the Connecticut Ecological Conditions Online (CT ECO) server provides some of the data including aerial photography. To access CT ECO visit: http://www.cteco.uconn.edu/

For connection to data layers available from CT ECO within GIS software programs like ArcGIS visit: http://www.cteco.uconn.edu/map_services.htm

Map Mash-ups Unavailable

2010-06-25T07:03:00.005-04:00

The Aerial Photography, Historical Maps, and Topographic Map Mash-ups included on MAGIC's website are currently offline. We are investigating the source of the problem and hope to have this resolved soon. We apologize for any inconvenience and if you wish to view the 1934 and 2008 aerial imagery in a map-mashup (with address search box) the following service is available from the On the Line project at Trinity College.

http://ontheline.trincoll.edu/dual.html

We believe we have isolated the problem and will resolve this issue as soon as possible and will post updates to the blog.

Update: June 25, 2010 10:45pm - The Map Mash-up outage is the result of some changes in the Google Maps API code, and we are in the process of updating theses map mash-ups. The 1934 aerial photo map mash-up has been updated to include a transparency slider to compare 1934 aerial imagery with current imagery from Google. Check out the revised map mash-up at:

http://magic.lib.uconn.edu/mash_up/1934.html

More updates map mash-ups will be made in the next few days so once again we apologize for this inconvenience and we hope to have everything back up and running soon.

CT GIS User to User Meeting - June 18, 2010

2010-06-09T22:14:00.013-04:00

The Connecticut GIS User to User Meeting will be held on June 18, 2010 at the University of Connecticut Waterbury Campus. This meeting will focus on Open Source GIS and related applications and will include both presentations and hands-on demonstrations of the technologies. Included below is the agenda for this meeting:

8:30 to 9:00am
Networking - Meet other GIS colleagues from around the state!

9:00 to 10:15am
Presentation of Freeware and Shareware Applications

- QGIS - Presented by Neil Curri, Cornell Cooperative Extension Dutchess County
- BILKO Remote Sensing software by Jeffrey Dunn, University of Connecticut
- uDig - Presented by Thad Dymkowski, Town of Newington
- Open Indicators Consortium - Presented by James Farnam, Holt, Wexler & Farnam, LLP
- Weave -

10:15 to 10:30am
Break and Networking

10:30 to 11:30am
Small-group Live Demonstrations

Opportunity to learn more about the following:
- GIS on the Cheap - Peggy Minnis - Pace University
- QGIS - Neil Curri - Cornell Cooperative Extension Dutchess County
- BILKO - Jeffrey Dunn - University of Connecticut
- uDig - Thad Dymkowski - Town of Newington
- Open Indicators Consortium - James Farnam, Holt, Wexler & Farnam, LLP
- Weave - Georges Grinstein, University of Massachusetts Lowell

11:30am to 11:45am
MapServer for WMS Access

- MapServer for WMS Access presented by Michael Smith, Maine GIS

11:45am-12:00pm
Tips & Tricks, Questions & Answers

- Share free tools, scripts and tips
- Q & A

12:00pm
Adjourn

Note: This is a tentative agenda and subject to change

This meeting is free and open to all GIS users and there is no registration fee. If you are interested in attending join us on Friday June 18, 2010 at the University of Connecticut Waterbury campus in Multipurpose Room 113-116.

Parking is available in the Waterbury Campus parking garage for free and included below are links to directions to the Waterbury Campus.

Directions:

Directions to the UConn Waterbury Campus are available at: http://www.waterbury.uconn.edu/about/directionsgarage.html

Parking is free in the campus parking garage and the following link includes a Google Map with the garage entrance marked:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=&daddr=41.556372,-73.036337&hl=en&geocode=&mra=dme&mrcr=0&mrsp=1&sz=17&sll=41.555762,-73.037463&sspn=0.005556,0.009645&ie=UTF8&z=17

MAGIC and Trinity College receive $100,800 NEH Grant

2010-05-14T14:21:00.013-04:00

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has jointly awarded the University of Connecticut Libraries Map and Geographic Information Center - MAGIC and Trinity College a $100,800 grant which will enable the development of web-based interactive maps pertaining to schooling and housing in the Greater Hartford region. The digital maps that are developed through this collaboration will be featured in the forthcoming print/ebook "On The Line: How Schooling, Housing and Civil Rights Shaped Hartford and its Suburbs" written by Trinity faculty member Jack Dougherty.

The grant is one of 286 humanities projects that were recently funded by the NEH for a total of $16 million, and represents the only Digital Humanities Fellowship grant that was awarded during this cycle. The purpose of the NEH fellowships is to support collaboration between digital centers and individual scholars, providing both a stipend for the fellow and a portion of the center’s costs.

Through this collaboration, MAGIC and Trinity College will be developing a series of maps, datasets (in shapefile and KML formats), and Map Mash-ups to enable users to explore Hartford and the surrounding region with a geographic focus. The resources developed from this project will be freely accessible via the MAGIC website and will include:

• Dual-window linked maps that show past and present aerial views at the same time;
• Animated timeline maps that show change over time
• Interactive map simulations to engage broader audiences into viewing the past through someone else’s eyes

The following is a prototype of one of the map interfaces to be developed during this grant-funded project. These two maps illustrate the influence of 1960s interstate highway development on urban neighborhoods in Hartford and provide researchers the ability to view 1934 and 2008 aerial photography of the region side-by-side:

To learn more about Jack Dougherty’s project, visit: http://ontheline.trincoll.edu/.

Prior to applying for this grant, MAGIC and Trinity began to discuss collaborative project opportunities following a presentation by Benjamin Spaulding at the 2009 NEArc Spring Meeting. Shortly after this presentation, MAGIC visited Trinity College and within a few months, a series of grant applications were written thus formally establishing this collaboration. MAGIC welcomes other institutions and organizations to consider collaborating with us to help us expand free public access to Connecticut maps and geospatial data.

Special thanks to Jack Dougherty for making this opportunity happen, and the entire staff at MAGIC look forward to working with Trinity College on this project!

Masters and Doctoral Defenses in Geography - Spring 2010

2010-04-22T10:29:00.008-04:00

The schedule for masters and doctoral defenses for the Geography Department at the University of Connecticut is now available and included below is the complete listing which includes topics, dates, times, and locations for each event.

Benjamin Spaulding - Doctoral Dissertation Oral Defense
A Game Theoretic Approach to the Maximal Covering Prevention Location Problem
April 26, 2010 from 1pm - 3pm in CLAS Building Room 420

Jie Lin - Masters Thesis Defense
Using Geographically Weighted Regression To Solve The Areal Interpolation Problem.
April 27, 2010 from 10am - 11am in CLAS Building Room 420

Marshall Rivers - Masters Thesis Defense
A Spatial Analysis of Voter Turnout in Windham, CT from 2005 through 2008.
April 28, 2010 from 2pm - 3pm in CLAS Building Room 420

Jeanne Thibeault - Doctoral Dissertation Oral Defense
Changing Climate in the Bolivian Altiplano
May 5, 2010 from 2pm - 5pm in Center for Undergraduate Education (CUE) Building Room 320

We hope you will be able to attend these sessions!

Connecticut Geo-Focus Newsletter - Spring 2010

2010-04-22T10:13:00.006-04:00

The latest issue of the Connecticut Geo-Focus newsletter is now available. In this issue you will find articles and updates on the following topics:

Be sure to check out this newsletter!

CT GIS User to User Meeting - April 30

2010-04-09T18:41:00.004-04:00

The Connecticut GIS User to User Meeting will be held on April 30, 2010 at Central Connecticut State University from 8:30am - 12:00pm. This meeting will include two panel discussions:

GIS and the Current Economic Recession
Land Surveyors and GIS: A panel discussion on the recent declaratory ruling

In addition to these panel discussions, participants will have a chance to network with other GIS users from throughout the region.

CT User to User member can now add themselves to the map through a simple Google Maps mashup. at All you need to do is enter your latitude, longitude, name, organization and email and/or website and your information will be added to the map. There is a delay in populating the map with your points and will be visible on the completed map.

We hope you can join us for this meeting!

For more updates on GIS related news and events in Connecticut subscribe to the CT GIS User to User listserv at: http://ctgis.uconn.edu/listserve.htm

GIS & Public Health Conference @ U of Albany

2010-04-09T17:06:00.006-04:00

The University of Albany School of Public Health's GIS and Public Health Conference will be held May 4-5, 2010. This conference, in its 6th year, offers sessions showcasing how GIS is being used within the context of public health research. In addition to these presentations, classes related to mapping and public health will also be offered during the conference.

For additional details on this conference visit: http://www.albany.edu/~msz03/gis/gis_publichealth_2010.pdf

To register for this conference visit: http://www.ualbanycphp.org/news.cfm?id=39

Views from Wonderland, and artists book - April 15, 2010

2010-04-07T22:09:00.010-04:00

Janet Pritchard, Art and Art History Faculty Member at the University of Connecticut will be presenting "Views from Wonderland, and artists book" on April 15 at the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute from 4:00-5:30pm in the CLAS Building, Room 301. Pritchard's presentation will focuses on Yellowstone National Park and will feature a series of historic and modern photos.

For more details on this and other events at the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute visit: http://web2.uconn.edu/uchi/home.php

MAGIC 2.0 Online Maps Server Upgrade

2010-03-12T09:58:00.003-05:00

The University of Connecticut Libraries Map and Geographic Information Center - MAGIC will be updating the MAGIC 2.0 Online Maps interface on Friday March 12, 2010 from 3:00pm to 7:00pm. During this upgrade the following services and resources will be unavailable:

MAGIC 2.0 Online Maps
MAGIC WMS Server
MAGIC's Mash-ups (aerial photos, topographic maps, historical map mash-ups)

Once this upgrade is complete all services will be available and we anticipate this upgrade not taking more than 3-4 hours. We apologize for any inconvenience this outage may cause.

Connecticut Geo-Focus Winter 2010 Newsletter

2010-02-03T15:30:00.004-05:00

The latest issue of the Connecticut Geo-Focus newsletter is now available. In this issue you will find articles and updates on the following topics:

MAGIC GeoCommons Workshops - Spring 2010

2010-01-11T16:23:00.007-05:00

Starting Spring Semester 2010, the University of Connecticut Libraries Map and Geographic Information Center - MAGIC is offering a series of free workshops to encourage our users to explore the capabilities of the GeoCommons.

The GeoCommons is the collaborative learning space on level 4 of the Homer Babbidge Library which is designed to enable our users to create maps and incorporate them into presentations, videos, documents, websites and more. Each of these workshops will focus on how users can create maps and incorporate them directly into their research, regardless of format. Included below are the listing of workshops for Spring Semester 2010, along with a link to register for each session.

Google Maps Mash-ups – Basics

Have you seen customized Google Maps and wondered how could I do that? This workshop will provide hands-on experience with creating a customized Google Map which you can add to a website or to showcase your own research.

Date: Monday, January 25, 2010

Time: 4:00-5:00pm