Community Engagement
New committee members met to confirm date/time, determine representative for Coordination Cmte, and finalize posting of Geoportal demo playlist.
August 2025 Program Update
Welcome to Our New GIN Members!
Section titled “Welcome to Our New GIN Members!”We are excited to welcome three new members to the Big Ten Academic Alliance Geospatial Information Network.
Chelsea Nestel, GIS Librarian at the University of Oregon, brings expertise in cartography, geospatial education, and design. With a PhD from UW–Madison, Chelsea offers workshops, consultations, and contributes actively to international cartographic communities.
Brendan Whyte joins the University of Chicago as Map Curator and Head of the Map Collection. Formerly with the National Library of Australia, Brendan supports campus-wide use of maps in research and instruction, promoting geospatial thinking across disciplines.
Anna Rohl is the new Map Curator at the University of Michigan’s Clark Library. She supports collection development, research, instruction, and public outreach, drawing on her background in history and library science.
Please join us in welcoming Anna, Chelsea, and Brendan to the GIN community!
Committees
Section titled “Committees”Coordination
Did not meet.
Knowledge
New committee members met to confirm date/time and reviewed the charter.
TECHnology
Did not meet (work wrapped in June).
Workgroups
Section titled “Workgroups”
Geodata Collection Workgroup
Section titled “Geodata Collection Workgroup”- Reviewed draft data provider partnership agreement.
- Consulted GIN members for city contacts; set prioritized partner city list.
Service Model Collaboration Workgroup
Section titled “Service Model Collaboration Workgroup”- Shared the final GIS Service Model Survey Report with all GIN members.
- Shared highlights in September Program Team to spark next steps.
Geospatial Data Citation Workgroup
Section titled “Geospatial Data Citation Workgroup”Conducted a literature review in preparation for research and publication.
BTAA Geoportal
Section titled “BTAA Geoportal”This Month by the Numbers
Section titled “This Month by the Numbers”Top internal keyword searches
Section titled “Top internal keyword searches”- Sanborn
- Yemen
- Georgia USA
- Aerial photos
- South Carolina USA
- Conservation
- Pennsylvania
Collections
Section titled “Collections”Total records as of September 1, 2025: 109,345
Harvesting Activities
Section titled “Harvesting Activities”| Title | Records Added | Records Retired |
|---|---|---|
| Humanitarian Data Exchange | 2,398 | 143 |
| MN GeoCommons | 2 | 3 |
| Static sites | 0 | 950 |
| Socrata portals | 491 | 450 |
| Total | 2,891 | 1,556 |
Web Development
Section titled “Web Development”- Created new BTAA GIN subsite to document our development of the new API and Linked Data profiles: https://gin.btaa.org/ld/
- Geoportal: Improved facet order for GBL Admin workflows, streamlined data exports for Tableau, and added GeoJSON support to asset uploads and to the ItemViewer.