Finding Your Library in Suffolk County and other Government GIS News

In Suffolk County, NY, library budget allocations are tied to library card registrations, so it is important that residents (a) register and (b) do it in the right library. However, in Suffolk County, point "b" is not always so straightforward, because a library's service area is defined by school districts, township boundaries, and other confusing lines.

So, a federal libaray grant was used to develop a site to help people find their library and apply for a card. I'm so glad my city has a single library system (with three branches).

- Libaray Journal

Plows will have TomTom GPS devices, just like those sold in stores, programmed with each of the 217 snow plow routes, meaning all drivers will have to do is punch in the specific route number and just follow the voice commands. 

Keith Compton, the head of the county's [Montgomery County, MD] snow removal team, says the 300 or so TomToms were far less expensive than the automated vehicle locator system they contemplated buying: "These things are about $250 a piece. A full-blown AVL system is about $800,000."

- WAMU

The Data.Illinois.gov site will soon post more than 4,000 additional sets of data. Currently there are just several hundred sets.

The Illinois governor's office says it recently received federal government approval to post the new data that offers information related to Illinois compiled by several U.S. agencies.

Among the data are those from Census and EPA.

- WBEZ via @storm7

NCIS Map Marks Areas Sailors Should be Careful and other Government GIS News

The map - provided to crew members of the first ship to arrive for Navy Week in the Port of Los Angeles - fast became the topic of discussion on Thursday, turning up in stories on national blogs, out-of-town newspapers, television stations - and, of course, on Facebook.

It outlined the downtown as a "high drug use and distribution" area [in San Pedro, CA].

While locals don't find their city unsafe, business took the initiative to help the visitors feel welcome in the local shops and restaurants. It's not clear the source of the data.

- Daily Breeze

The latest highway map from the State of Ohio includes a single barcode. It can be scanned with a cell phone to get up-to-date traffic information. I wonder if people will use it or simply bookmark the traffic website?

- Columbus Dispatch

Officials with the Muskegon County [Michigan] Family Court put GPS tracking units in court cars last month to find out if workers were going to where they were supposed to during the day.

The GPS units showed that the workers were doing things like going home, going to the gym and a golf course instead of keeping track of juveniles' whereabouts.     

Two workers resigned and one was disciplined. "You have nothing to worry about unless you are doing something wrong..."

- WWMT

It's a bit confusing to look at the Hutchinson Kansas interactive neighborhood health map.

Why? First off, it's map of the state of the districts based on many criteria: crime, "the value of the property, its age, whether it was owner occupied or a rental, physical deficiencies of the housing, the value of renovations, repairs and new construction across the city, crimes and their locations, median household income and whether housing units were occupied"etc. Second, it's not too interactive. If you click on a distrct you open a PDF of data. So far as I can tell, that's the limit of the interactivity. On the positive side, it does look like a valuable tool to hone in on areas in need of assistance and the local paper who created the map details how itw as created.

- Hutchinson News

Crowsourcing GIS (VGI) Tidbits - 5/6/11

Building on a program out of San Francisco, the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments (California) is going high-tech, using next week's Bike Week to urge bicyclists to help with regional bike planning by downloading a smart phone application that tracks their routes.

The app available for iPhone and Android and, the article notes, it will not track you if you do not have it on.

- Mercury News

The latest CACM (Communications of the ACM) issue includes three papers that address crowdsourcing and VGI.

Reflecting on the DARPA Red Balloon Challenge

Crowdsourcing Systems on the World-Wide Web

Emergency! Web 2.0 to the Rescue!

- via @mhacklay

The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CMNI) is still working on its broadband map. Fifteen people showed up to a meeting asking for residents to take the broadband survey.

One Economy Corp., a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, hosted a town hall meeting Tuesday night to obtain community input on its broadband mapping program for the CNMI.

I have to admit, broadband mapping is helping us better understand US/territory geography!

- Saipan Today