Wednesday, January 7. 2009

Off Topic: Why We Need Libraries

I wrote the following over vacation (on Jan 2), but seeing this headline convinced me it was time to run it today: "Philadelphia Libraries Remain Open, But Staff Cuts Mean Fewer Days" (Library Journal)

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I love libraries. I'm in one now (Somerville Public, Main Branch). It's got free wireless, not just for the library, but the neighbors, too.

Continue reading "Off Topic: Why We Need Libraries"

Old Poll, New Poll

Back in November (yes it's been a while!) we asked how important is it that a job candidate be familiar with more than one GIS product/platform. I'm please to report 82% of the 28 respondents put it in the required/valuable category. (Note that students! And, to be clear, this need not mean you pay someone to teach you a package. There are some great tutorials and free and open source software to explore!)

58% - Valuable; it's nice to have.

25% - Required; I won't hire the person.

18% - Not important; I don't even ask about it.

Next up: Which is your biggest challenge in doing your geo-related job? Vote in the lower right hand corner of the main page.

Health GIS Blog

Correction 1/9/09: Melissa Lawrence, not Evens Solomon, is the other author. It appears the About page was out of date.

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I ran across this the other day: The GIS Use in Public Health and Health Care blog. It's written by - Wansoo Im, Ph.D. at VERTICES (who run into now and again) and Evens Salomon, a student intern from Rutgers University.

NAVTEQ VP: "Indian Map data quality is not up to the mark"

Silicon India's headline included the term "sucks" but Vice President, Partner and Developer Program Marc Naddel, who gave the keynote, didn't apparently say that. The statement above was made at during a panel discussions on LBS at COMSNETS-09, an international conference on communication systems and networks, being held in Bangalore.

Microsoft chose NAVTEQ for its Live Search, just last month. So, I guess Microsoft finds NAVTEQ's data works for that company. NAVTEQ owner Nokia got into a PR "situation" last month when outdated maps caused protests because of mobile map's depictions of Kashmir.

Naddel went on to say that there is great opportunity, but if he did talk about how NAVTEQ/Nokia will be capturing better data, Silicon India didn't report it.