Library and Information Science Commons^™

Thematic Mapping Of Apidae Holdings Within The University Of Arkansas Arthropod Museum, Baylie Lenora Day

Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

Museum biological collections store species data that can be utilized in research on biodiversity, environmental change, invasive species, public health, and disease. The University of Arkansas Arthropod Museum, which began in 1905, houses over 750,000 specimens and has not yet been digitized. Making data publicly accessible via the internet makes the data available to the entire scientific community. The goal of this project was to create a digital resource to allow greater access to the University of Arkansas Arthropod Museum holdings. To do so, data from Bombus (bumble bee) and Xylocopa (carpenter bee) specimens were databased in Excel and displayed …

Using Extended Two-Step Floating Catchment Area To Map Children’S Level Of Access To Physical Books In West Virginia, Heather A. Maxey

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The state of West Virginia lacked a comprehensive, in-depth analysis of the availability of physical books across the state. Access to reading material is vital to a child’s educational development as well as lifelong learning beyond childhood. To guide policy decisions and planning for outreach which addresses reading levels and beyond, I mapped levels of access stemming from socioeconomic barriers, spatial barriers, and an integrated index of both types of barriers. To map spatial access, I utilized a modified Extended Two-Step Floating Catchment Area model, deriving techniques from Hong et al’s 2023 article addressing access for health care in WV. …

Creating A Public Space For Georeferencing Sanborn Maps: A Louisiana Case Study, Adam Cox

LSU Master's Theses

As institutional archives digitize their historical map collections and make them publicly available online, new methods for engaging with these materials emerge. Georeferencing the maps transforms their content from static images to dynamic map overlays, and allows for the extraction of geographic data like building footprints or place name coordinates. Many organizations have turned to crowdsourcing to georeference their large holdings, and this thesis approaches crowdsourced georeferencing from the perspective of participatory heritage, taking much inspiration from the idea of the archival commons. To test these ideas, a new extension was created for GeoNode—an open source geospatial content management system—that …

Cluster Analysis Of Opioid Accessibility In The Carolinas Using Data From The Arcos Database And An Enhanced Two-Step Floating Catchment Area Method, Michael T. Bunker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study takes advantage of transaction level data from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) Automation of Reports and Consolidated Orders System (ARCOS) database made newly available under court order by The Washington Post in July 2019. This data details individual shipments of pharmaceutical opioid analgesics from wholesalers to retail distributors. Using the Enhanced 2-Step Floating Catchment Area (E2SFCA) method, this study calculated access to opioid morphine milligram equivalents (MME) per capita for census tracts in North Carolina and South Carolina during the year 2009. This study demonstrated that outlier volumes of opioid analgesics at individual pharmacies are not always …

A Study On The Integration Of Multivariate Metocean, Ocean Circulation, And Trajectory Modeling Data With Static Geographic Information Systems For Better Marine Resources Management And Protection During Coastal Oil Spill Response – A Case Study And Gap Analysis On Northeastern Gulf Of Mexico Tidal Inlets, Richard Ray Knudsen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 requires the development of Regional and Area Contingency Plans. For more than 20 years, the State of Florida, under both the Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, has worked closely with the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to develop these plans for coastal and marine oil spill response. Current plans, developed with local, state and federal stakeholder input, use geographic information systems (GIS) data such as location and extent of sensitive ecological, wildlife, and human-use features (termed Environmental Sensitivity Index data), pre-defined protection priorities, …

Public Geospatial Data In Wisconsin: Information Access, Data Sharing, And The University, Stephen Robert Appel

Theses and Dissertations

This research explores public geospatial data sharing in Wisconsin. The research is informed by literature on GIS and Society, Participatory GIS, Spatial Data Infrastructure, Information Justice, The Digital Divide, and Library and Information Science. Original research consists of a survey and follow up interview to public land information professionals in Wisconsin gauging their interest in a UW System-wide geographic information portal for distributing public spatial data to UW System users. The research finds that social and institutional rather than technical factors are major drivers of data-sharing activities in Wisconsin. However, technical aspects of geographic information are changing quickly with a …

Access To Spatial Data: The Political Power Of Legal Control Mechanisms, Patrice A. Day

Theses and Dissertations

According to the U.S. Supreme Court (Island Trees School District v. Pico, 457 U.S. 853, 1982), the Constitution presupposes that the free flow of information between the government and the public is essential to maintaining an informed citizenry, which in turn is essential to holding governments accountable. However, local governments are increasingly using various legal mechanisms to limit public access to geographic information (GI), and this in turn can potentially disrupt this balance. Licensing and copyright are two such mechanisms that local government agencies are using to limit GI access and distribution.

If information is power, whoever controls information, controls …

Geospatial Data Accessibility In Web 2.0 Environments, Sara Helen Mcnamee

Masters Theses

Geographically referenced data is becoming a robust source of information because the use of place-based relevance searching is being employed as a popular form of information access and dispersal. To address this trend, the researcher conducted a study on the usability of the USA National Phenology Network (http://www.usanpn.org/), engaging 6 volunteer participants structured usability test of the USANPN mapping application. The participants were asked to complete two tasks, and data was collected both during (in the form of a think aloud exercise) and after the test (in the form of an exit interview). From the data collected, the researcher aimed …

Development Of A Web-Based Geographic Information System For Arctic Science, George Walker Johnson

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Environmental science is a large field of study that requires the acquisition of data for decision making in solving environmental issues. Leveraging desktop geographic information systems (GIS) and web-based GIS (WebGIS) systems for assisting in the problem solving processes can benefit both the research community and policy makers for decision making activities. Ensuring interoperability between desktop, web, and server GIS is essential for maximizing access, sharing and manipulation of data. Interoperability is maximized through the adoption of best practices, use of open standards, and utilization of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI). While many of the interoperability challenges such as infrastructure, data …