Maps Exhibit This Thursday in Downtown Muncie

Eat, Drink, and Cartography: Celebrating “My Indiana Home” with Maps and a Wicked Book

The Ball State University Libraries’ GIS Research and Map Collection (GRMC) is coordinating an exhibit for the Muncie DWNTWN First Thursday Arts Walk.  This Thursday, December 1 Twin Archer Brew Pub (117 West Charles Street) will be hosting an exhibit of maps of Indiana starting at 5:00 through 8:00 pm.  And Keith Roysdon and Douglas Walker will be signing copies of their new book, Wicked Muncie.

The map exhibit, “My Indiana Home,” features Indiana history maps created by the GRMC in celebration of the state’s Bicentennial this December 11.  The maps cover Indiana’s rich political history, women’s history, military history, music, sports, and even movies that take place in the state.  The newest map in the collection depicts the Vice Presidents from Indiana.  The collection of Indiana history maps is available in digital format in the Libraries’ Cardinal Scholar repository or may be circulated from the GRMC.  Teachers can use the maps for classroom exhibits or research, especially for fourth-grade Indiana history lessons.

Ball State University students in Dr. Hannah Barnes’ watercolor and painting class also created original maps of their interpretation of home.  The students visited the GRMC to look at all the different kinds of cartography (above) for inspiration and then painted maps of their Indiana homes.  This collection is extremely creative: One student painted a compass rose of a common Indiana insect, the cicada (above).  These maps will be included as a special collection in the Libraries’ Digital Media Repository.

The book Wicked Muncie by Keith Roysdon and Douglas Walker describes the criminal history of Muncie.  The authors explored the notorious and unusual side of Muncie’s history of crime, including murder, corruption, and illegal gambling.  Books will be available for purchase and signing.

Twin Archer Brew Pub serves all ages as a restaurant and a bar that serves craft beer.  The menu includes fresh ingredients every day.

For more information, please contact the GRMC at 765-285-1097.

Geography Awareness Week Activities at Ball State University Libraries

Geography Awareness Week Events at Ball State University Libraries

The National Geographic Society created “Geography Awareness Week” to raise awareness to a dangerous deficiency in American education in the importance of geospatial issues and their impacts on students as global citizens.  The commemoration also serves to excite people about geography as both a discipline and as a part of everyday life.

November 13-19 is “Geography Awareness Week,” and the Ball State University Libraries’ GIS Research and Map Collection (GRMC) is celebrating with special events.  GIS Day is Wednesday, November 16 from 1:00 to 4:00 pm in the Bracken Library Schwartz Digital Complex.  Attendees will be able to learn about GIS software and data resources on campus, attend brief presentations by faculty about how they use GIS in their research, and view and vote for their favorite student-created GIS research posters.

On Wednesday evening from 6:00 to 7:00 pm geography and history fans can attend a special class about Indiana history at the Cornerstone Center for the Arts (520 East Main Street) in downtown Muncie.  The class will feature custom Indiana history maps created to celebrate the state’s Bicentennial in December.  Some of the maps feature events in Indiana political history, sports history, and women’s history.  Maps about the lives of famous Hoosiers will also be shown, including Madam C.J. Walker, John Dillinger, and Marshall “Major” Taylor.

For more information about these events, please contact the GRMC at 765-285-1097.

Celebrate Indiana History with Maps, Art, and a Crime Novel

Celebrating 200 Years of Indiana History Using Maps, Art, and a Wicked Book

The Ball State University Libraries GIS Research and Map Collection (GRMC) will provide a presentation celebrating the Bicentennial of Indiana on November 16 from 6:00 to 7:00 pm at the Cornerstone Center for the Arts (520 East Main Street).  This presentation will feature maps from the Map Collection in Bracken Library and will also include custom Indiana history maps created by the GRMC to commemorate the Bicentennial.

Some of the maps included in this special series describe events in the state’s political history, women’s history, civil rights history (above, click to enlarge), the automobile industry, sports, and music.  The series also includes maps featuring famous people from Indiana.  One of the newest maps created for the project details the route of a bicycle road race across Indiana won by world champion Marshall “Major” Taylor in 1895.

The maps include historic photographs from the Libraries’ Digital Media Repository.  And copies of the map may be downloaded from Cardinal Scholar.  (Just type "Indiana history map" in the search box). 

The presentation will also include maps of Indiana created by geography students in Dr. Jorn Seemann’s cartography classes.  And information about how teachers can incorporate the maps into the social studies classroom will be provided.

The maps will also be exhibited at Twin Archer Brewpub (117 West Charles Street) on December 1 as part of the Muncie Downtown First Thursday Arts Walk.  This event will also include hand-drawn maps of Indiana from the watercolor class of Dr. Hannah Barnes from the Ball State University Department of Art.  And Keith Roysdon and Douglas Walker will be signing copies of their new Muncie crime history book, Wicked Muncie.

For more information, please contact the GRMC at 765-285-1097.

GIS Day Is November 16 at Ball State University Libraries

GIS Day at Bracken Library November 16

The Ball State University Libraries will be hosting GIS Day from 1:00 to 4:00 pm on November 16 in the Schwartz Digital Complex off the lobby of Bracken Library.  The focus of this year’s event is faculty research.

At 1:00 pm Dongying Li, Instructor in the Department of Landscape Architecture, will present Grassroots Mapping and Crowdsourcing: Examining the Experiential Quality of Urban Space. 

At 1:25 pm Dr. Chad Kinsella, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, will present Geographic Polarization.

At 1:50 pm Kevin Nolan and Christine Thompson of the Applied Anthropology Lab, will present GIS Applied to Anthropology: Use of Spatial Analysis in the Applied Anthropology Lab.

At 2:15 pm Dr. Jorn Seemann, Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography, will provide details about the Delaware County BIG Map Project for the Indiana Bicentennial Celebration.

At 3:00 pm Dr. Jim Connolly, Director of the Middletown Center and Professor in the Department of History, and Dr. Doug Seefeldt, Assistant Professor in the Department of History, will present a session on the Ball State University Digital Scholarship Lab.

A GIS student poster competition will be included in the events.  Posters will be displayed in the Schwartz Digital Complex Lobby.  Awards for the posters will be announced at 2:30 pm.

GIS Day is sponsored by the Ball State University GIS Knowledge Group in coordination with SPA Research Week.  For more information, please contact Angela Gibson in the GIS Research and Map Collection (GRMC) at 765-285-1097.

Times Changing This Weekend

Maps in the News:  Times Are Changing

Vox created these maps (above, click to enlarge) to show how the implementation of Daylight Saving Time affects the number of “reasonable” sunrises and sunsets.  Daylight Saving Time ends at exactly 2:00 am on November 6—this Sunday morning.

Updated and Custom Electoral College Maps

Monkeying Around with Red States and Blue States

Survey Monkey has created an interactive electoral map where users can check the results of the company’s ongoing election tracking survey.  The company is updating the electoral map regularly in the final days of the election.  Users can select different categories to see how the map changes—women, men, millennials, college versus no college, married versus unmarried women (above, click to enlarge).  Users can also click on individual states, changing the state color from blue to red or red to blue, to predict the outcome of the election and create a custom electoral map.

Online Map Tracks the Presidential Candidates

All Over the Map:  On the Presidential Campaign Trail with Clinton and Trump

ESRI, the world’s leading publisher of GIS software, has created a Story Map that allows users to track the U.S. presidential candidates from the national conventions to Election Day.  Campaign Travel Log identifies locations where each of the candidates have traveled and provides a glimpse of which swing states will be in play.

Users can choose to follow the travel log of Hillary Clinton or switch to Donald Trump.  Details of the candidates’ visits are provided in a column on the right.  And you can click on a location on the map, and the log will automatically be directed to the description of that visit.

The Ball State University Libraries’ GIS Research and Map Collection (GRMC) consolidates one-on-one research assistance from the GIS Specialist with the GIS Research Area, which offers access to ESRI GIS software, online tutorials, datasets, online mapping applications, and in-house GIS data.  GIS software is also available on computers throughout Bracken Library, the Architecture Library, and in the Science-Health Science Library.

For more information, please contact the GRMC at 765-285-1097.