From 1850-1856, James Jesse Strang (image below) lived on Beaver Island as a self-appointed king among the Mormon adherents who declared allegiance to him after the death of Joseph Smith. Strang commanded a loyal following from his congregants but it often brought the Strangite Mormons into conflict with the judiciary in Mackinac. These disagreements drove the Mormons to seek local and state political office and culminated in the election of Strang as a state legislator. It was through this office that Strang would seek to change the fortunes of his community and alter the geography of...
Continue reading "Mormonism and Michigan's County Formation"...Few. Now you see it : simple visualization techniques for quantitative analysis. Analytics Press © 2006. Call Number: TK 7882.I6 F48 2009
Flora of North America Editorial Committee. Flora of North America : north of Mexico. Oxford University Press ©1993- Call Number: QK 110 .F55 1993 v.6
Kumano. Freshwater red algae of the world. Biopress ©2002. Call Number QK 569 .R4 K86 2002
Bremer. Using R at the bench : step-by-step data analytics for biologists. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press ©2015. Call Number: QH 324.2 .B74 2015 c.2
Roskams and Rodgers. Lab ref : a...
Continue reading "New Books"...This three hour workshop gives participants the opportunity to learn QGIS, the free and open source geospatial software package. The workshop content revolves around solving a research/planning question using data about Detroit. Skills included in the workshop are making a color-shaded choropleth map, sub-setting data, using census data, geocoding within QGIS, joining datasets, creating buffers and more. If you have taken other library workshops on QGIS, this workshop will review and build on your skills. If you are totally unfamiliar with QGIS this workshop will give you a solid ...
Continue reading "Learn QGIS at our Half-day Workshop"...
William C. Gast was a compassionate businessman who believed in bringing the high ideals he lived by to the family-run business he managed for more than 40 years. A leader in the southwestern Michigan business community, Mr. Gast led his company to prosperity by following the simple tenets of life's most basic rule - treat others as you might hope to be treated.
Mr. Gast was a student at Michigan State University when, in 1925, his father called him home to help oversee the family's growing manufacturing business. Mr. Gast would eventually see the company through 40 years of...
Continue reading "Do you know where the Gast Business Library gets its name?"...We are hosting two more fun and useful workshops this semester!
Finding Geospatial Data This workshop will describe places and strategies for finding geospatial data of various types, with an emphasis on free, public resources as well as library resources. There will be time at the end to answer questions, conduct individual searches and brainstorm about individual project needs. Monday March 21st 3-4:30 PM in the Main Library 3 West No registration needed.
Create a 3D Historical Map Flythrough Using ArcScene Learn to use the ArcGIS 3D Analyst tool ArcScene to create a 3D...
Continue reading "Geospatial Workshops, Spring 2016"...A lucky few, however, have found diamonds in the Great Lakes area. Michigan’s most notable find was Frank Blackmond’s 11-carat diamond found in 1894 near Dowagiac in southwest Michigan. Several...
Continue reading "Diamonds in Your Back Yard?"...
Part of the black-ink plate to the 1912 Lansing topographic map.
From the 1880s to the 1950s, the U.S. Geological Survey used engraved copper plates in the process of printing topographic and geographic quadrangle maps. Copper alloy engraving plates were inscribed with a mirror image of the points, contour lines, symbols, and text that constitute a topographic map. Each plate was inscribed with details for a single color of ink. Every sheet of paper had to be impressed multiple times to make a complete color map. In order to make large numbers of prints, USGS transferred the...
Continue reading "Copper Plates in Map Production"...East Lansing and MSC, 1926
This map of East Lansing and the Michigan State College campus shows every land parcel and every campus building. It also includes the city’s sanitation and sewage treatment infrastructure, which mainly involved piping sewage to the Red Cedar River (a practice long since discontinued). The City of East Lansing passed its first zoning ordinance effective August 13, 1926 in the form of a 12-page booklet which is attached to the map. The ordinance created five use districts in the city (excepting the college lands) which carefully separated fraternity and...
Continue reading "East Lansing and MSC, 1926"...We will be offering many fun and useful workshops this semester!
Print your Neighborhood: 3D Printing From A Topographic Map: No 3D printing experience necessary. Use simple applications to prepare a file to 3D print a small area relief map of your favorite place or research area. Please bring a laptop with Autodesk 123D loaded (it can be downloaded for free here) Tuesday January 26th 3-4 PM (in the Makerspace Series) No registration needed - just show up to the Makerspace on the second floor of the library
QGIS Workshop 1: Choropleth Mapping will demonstrate how to make a...
Continue reading "Spring Semester 2016 Workshops"...In his speech to the US Congress on September 24, Pope Francis stated that “Our world is facing a refugee crisis of a magnitude not seen since the Second World War.” This common refrain can be heard throughout the current dialogue on the refugee and migrant situation in Europe and elsewhere but, what does it really mean?
Following the Potsdam Agreement, there were approximately 23 million people displaced either by the war’s effect or through the forced expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe. These population movements are reflected in our map from 1952, showing an astounding...
Continue reading "The European Migration Crisis in Perspective"...