At a glance

Branner Earth Sciences Library & Map Collections

Branner Library News

Researchers at Stanford are doing a lot of innovative and intriguing work. Their efforts are often highlighted in the Stanford Report, which provides readers with a brief compilation of the latest Stanford News via email each weekday. When those of us at Stanford Libraries who work on digital preservation read these articles, we immediately wonder what these researchers are doing to preserve all that wonderful research data.

Never ones to rest on our laurels, Stanford Libraries staff have been reaching out to these researchers and recommending that they preserve the data generated from these studies -- and sometimes submitted to journals as supplementary data files -- in the Stanford Digital Repository. We would hate to see all that innovative and intriguing work lost to the ravages of time!

Sometimes the very data we map can get in the way of our understanding the phenomena we are visualizing.

In the case of bird sightings for the Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, the typical approach to adding points over a map might have shown us where in time and space the birds were while on their annual migration, but the result would have also obscured the terrain over which they fly.

Using a creative visualization method of subtractive rather than additive symbology in mapping observations, John Nelson of IDV Solutions found a great way to reveal rather than hide the landscape these birds travel through. Instead of adding points for observations over a detailed map background, John used a masking technique to reveal the underlying map showing us the world the birds see as they migrate while still revealing the overall patterns in the data.

Maps of war take many forms from those showing battlefronts to the layout of trenches, from details of terrain to focusing on the forts that protect a harbor.  One category of war map is designed to inform the people at home or soldiers as to what is or has happened during a campaign.  This week we feature three maps from the Branner Library collection that focus on World War II and the battles in the Pacific.  This exhibit is part of the Branner 100th Anniversary celebration and will be on display May 28 - June 4, 2015 at the Branner Earth Sciences Library and Map Collections.

Between 1942 and 1946 the U.S. Army Information Branch issued weekly broadsheets called Newsmap that were targeted specifically for American military personnel to keep up on the progress of the war.  The broadsheets are large, measuring 3 feet by 4 feet and are printed on both sides.  They include maps, photographs, news, and the progress on each front.  224 Newsmaps were printed and Branner Library holds about 50 of them.  You may read more about these maps in a blog post written by Mike DiCianna, a student at Oregon State University.  The University of North Texas has scanned 212 of the maps and you may view them here.  The map on display is from October 13, 1943 and includes a map of Europe for context and the world colored according to military alliances.  At the bottom left three pictures show a time lapse of the bombing of a few flats in a river. 

 

Three new digital collections are now available in SearchWorks. These collections take advantage of SearchWorks' ability to provide users with rich discovery and access capabilities for finding and working with digital collection content.

Stanford Geospatial Center Teaching Data

Abstract: These items are intended for use in Stanford Geospatial Center teaching materials.

Collection contact: Amy Hodge

A Cropped Part of Rebecca Solnit's Monarchs and Queens Map 2010

This exhibit will be on display May 22-28, 2015 at the Branner Earth Sciences Library and Map Collections.

Rebecca Solnit, a former visiting fellow at the Bill Lane Center for the American West and Stanford University Libraries where she focused on Glen McLaughin’s collection of Maps of California as an Island, is a writer, historian and activist based in the Bay Area. She has authored fifteen books, including Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas (2010).

New Resources in Branner Library

Following is a listing of new print and e-books recently added to the Branner Earth Sciences Library.

  1. Gregory S. Girolami (Professor of Chemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). 2016

  2. edited by J. Wright Horton, Jr., U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia, Martin C. Chapman, Department of Geosciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, Russell A. Green, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia. 2015

  3. Charles B. Travis. 2015