GIS News
- The Digital Sanborn Maps are a valuable resource of early California maps available to library patrons.
- The David Rumsey Map Collection Map collector David Rumsey donates 150,000 maps of America's past to Stanford University.
GIS Career Information
GIS Services Office
The GIS Services office is located in Iris South on the third floor in the Mudd Wing of the Honnold/Mudd Library.
GIS ServicesIris South
Honnold/Mudd Library
800 N. Dartmouth
Claremont, CA 91711
GIS Services Information
What Are Geographic Information Systems?
Geographic Information Systems, GIS, is a powerful, very marketable tool that allows information to be displayed to a location, such as people to an address, crime to a demographic area, species to a slope and aspect then analyzed spatially combining critical thinking and problem solving by layering other information to give a better understanding of why certain populations vote, spend or where species can be found. Classic examples include spatially displaying information for environmental analysis, analyzing social demographic & voting patterns, or geographically displaying spending habits such as where are more populations likely to purchase the Washington Post to where there are more concentrations of poverty, or analyzing pollutions within delineated watershed.
Geographic Information Systems are comprised of computer applications that allow you to visualize large amounts of complex, spatial data by creating and combining layers of customized maps. If you can imagine, GIS allows you to wipe a landscape clean of its jumble of topography, rivers, environmental damage, wildlife, streets, buildings, telephone lines, and people, and then add this information back as separate layers in any combination so that you can see patterns and relationships that would have been difficult to notice otherwise. GIS can mine data from spreadsheets or relational databases, and combine it with visual data such as CAD files, graphics, and images to create "intelligent maps" on which different types of analysis can be performed.
GIS at the Claremont Colleges
The Libraries of the Claremont Colleges supports the innovative use of Geographic Information Systems for our students, staff, and faculty.
Increasingly more faculty in different departments will be using GIS in their courses and research, and interest in the technology is growing on campus and in the marketplace. We invite you to join the free weekly GIS workshops or drop in to explore applications in your area of interest. For more information please email GIS support.
GIS Activity
Highlight: Southern California Earthquake Data Center
Database includes maps of recent quakes, archives of earthquake data, fault maps, and more. The earthquake catalogs include polygons with latitude & longitude, quake magnitudes, and more.