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Explore featured stories, collection highlights, and program updates. Use the filters to narrow by tags, authors, or publication year.

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Program Update
JMGL

October 2025 Program Update

BTAA-GIN Team Honored with Best Paper of the Year Award

BTAA-GIN Staff
Collection Highlight
exterior photo of the west facade of Suzzallo Library

University of Washington Libraries Joins the BTAA-GIN!

The University of Washington (UW) Libraries is one of the new members of the BTAA-GIN this year.

Matthew Parsons
Program Update
Geoportal tutorials

September 2025 Program Update

We have launched a new series of video tutorials demonstrating common BTAA Geoportal search strategies

BTAA-GIN Staff
Program Update
Nestel, Whyte, and Rohl headshots

August 2025 Program Update

Welcome to Our New GIN Members!

BTAA-GIN Staff
Program Update
Overview diagram of proposed BTAA-GIN technology stack

July 2025 Program Update

Introducing Our New Strategic Technology Plan.

BTAA-GIN Staff
Program Update
Geo4LibCamp Participants

June 2025 Program Update

Held in May at the University of Minnesota, Geo4LibCamp 2025 convened over 20 software developers, librarians, curators, researchers, and administrators to share strategies and tools shaping the future of geospatial data services.

BTAA-GIN Staff
Collection Highlight

Applying Deep Learning Models to BTAA GeoPortal Collections

The boom of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in recent years has made a significant impact on Geographic Information Systems (GIS), including applications of Deep Learning (DL).

Mech Frazier
Program Update
Poster presented at ACRL 2025, Sustaining a Spatial Collaboration by Mattke, Majewicz, and Tickner

May 2025 Program Update

At the 2025 Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Conference in Minneapolis, BTAA-GIN members presented a poster highlighting the program's evolution and the social infrastructure.

BTAA-GIN Staff
Collection Highlight

Leveraging 3D GIS to promotion and discoveries map collection

We are proud and fortunate to possess a map collection featuring over 200,000 items.

Jose Anza Garcia, Milan Budhathoki
Program Update
Big Ten GIS Conference registrants and attendees

April 2025 Program Update

The fifth annual Big Ten GIS Conference, held virtually on April 11, 2025, marked a milestone for BTAA-GIN.

BTAA-GIN Staff
Program Update
BTAA in FAST

March 2025 Program Update

The BTAA-GIN FAST for Subject Terms Workgroup explored using FAST (Faceted Application of Subject Terminology) to improve search and discovery in the BTAA Geoportal.

BTAA-GIN Staff
Collection Highlight
Mike Siegel

Building the Historical Maps of New Jersey website

Interview with Michael Siegel, Staff Cartographer, Department of Geography, Rutgers-New Brunswick."

Sue Oldenburg, Francesca Giannetti
Program Update
Lantern logo

February 2025 Program Update

The BTAA-GIN Geodata Pilot Workgroup has successfully completed its current phase, establishing the technical and metadata infrastructure for a scalable geospatial repository.

BTAA-GIN Staff
Collection Highlight
Scan of a geological map

Discovery of Geological Maps in the BTAA Geoportal

Geological maps are a valuable resource for understanding characteristics of earth properties through rock and mineral formations.

Tara Anthony
Program Update
Big Ten Conference Map

January 2025 Program Update

We are excited to announce the Big Ten GIS Conference, a free virtual conference happening on April 11, 2025!

BTAA-GIN Staff
Program Update
Washington and Oregon

December 2024 Program Update

We are thrilled to welcome the University of Oregon and the University of Washington to the Big Ten Academic Alliance Geospatial Information Network (BTAA-GIN).

BTAA-GIN Staff
Program Update
100000 Records

November 2024 Program Update

The BTAA-GIN Geoportal has reached an impressive milestone: over 100,000 geospatial resources, with a large percentage of this growth happening in the past year alone!

BTAA-GIN Staff
Program Update
Photograph of Colleen Wilson*

October 2024 Program Update

We are happy to announce that Colleen Wilson has joined the Big Ten Academic Alliance's Geospatial Information Network as our new Associate Director of Program Management and Outreach Coordination.

BTAA-GIN Staff
Program Update
Bar chart of maps and dataset over time

September 2024 Program Update

A new article titled Ephemeral Geodata: An Impending Digital Dark Age, co-authored by four BTAA-GIN Team Members, was recently published in the *Journal of Map & Geography Libraries*.

BTAA-GIN Staff
Program Update
Allmaps

August 2024 Program Update

This year, the BTAA-GIN has adopted a new Priority Projects model to streamline our work and focus on the most impactful goals.

BTAA-GIN Staff
Program Update
JMGL

July 2024 Program Update

The *Journal of Map & Geography Libraries* published an article about the BTAA-GIN, "Social Infrastructure to Support Technological Advancement in Geospatial Data Discovery."

BTAA-GIN Staff
Program Update
Governance roadmap

June 2024 Program Update

This month, we completed our 2023-24 program roadmap, "Revamping the BTAA GIN."

BTAA-GIN Staff
Program Update
Allmaps

May 2024 Program Update

Allmaps Georeferencing Plugin - The BTAA Geoportal now features a plugin that integrates the Allmaps georeferencing platform for scanned maps hosted via IIIF.

BTAA-GIN Staff
Program Update
StoryMap displaying all five OpenIndexMaps

April 2024 Program Update

New OpenIndexMaps for historical Mississippi River atlases. We recently added five OpenIndexMaps for [19th century atlases of the Mississippi River.

BTAA-GIN Staff
Program Update

March 2024 Program Update

We had the honor of being invited by Yale University Libraries to present our expertise in GeoBlacklight, OpenGeoMetadata, and the BTAA Geoportal to their Associate University Librarians.

BTAA-GIN Staff
Program Update
Northwestern University

February 2024 Program Update

We are pleased to announce that Northwestern University has become a member of the BTAA-GIN.

BTAA-GIN Staff
Program Update
Thumbnails of a few georeferenced items from the CAMEL collection.

January 2024 Program Update

New records from University of Chicago institute

BTAA-GIN Staff
Program Update

December 2023 Program Update

Our Program Website Has a New Home! We migrated of our program website from Google Sites to a static site hosted on GitHub.

BTAA-GIN Staff