Where Does Thanksgiving Dinner Come from?

Here’s a fun example of using geographic information systems (GIS) to map agricultural data – Thanksgiving Maps, Posters, and Geospatial Data.

Linda Zellmer, the Government Information and Data Services Librarian at Western Illinois University, used GIS to map where traditional Thanksgiving foods (e.g., green beans, potato, pumpkin, turkey) are produced in the United States.  Using 1997 and 2002 Census of Agriculture data, she has created two sets of maps, and when the 2007 Census of Agriculture data becomes available next year, she plans to create a new set of maps.

The most recent poster uses 2002 Census data.

Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy

The Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy (JRSE) is a new, online-only, peer-reviewed journal from the American Institute of Physics (AIP). It is an interdisciplinary journal covering all area of renewable and sustainable energy-related fields that apply to the physical sciences and engineering communities. Topics covered include:

• Bioenergy – bioreactions and bioengineering
• Geothermal energy – geysers, heat pumps, and novel devices
• Marine and hydroelectric energy – waves, tides, and dams
• Nuclear energy – fission and fusion
• Solar energy – photovoltaics and solar thermal converters
• Wind energy – turbines and electrical systems and controls
• Energy conversion – solid oxide and proton exchange membrane fuel cells and novel devices
• Energy efficient buildings – photovoltaics, solar thermal converters, and passive solar approaches
• Energy storage – hydrogen and batteries
• Power distribution – conventional and superconducting transmission, fluctuating loads, and controls
• Renewable energy resource assessment
• Transportation – hydrogen, batteries, fuel cells, bioenergy, and vehicles

AIP has also created a companion website that includes:

• a blog in which insightful commentary on news, policy, and research related not just to the journal, but to renewable and sustainable energy in general, can be found
• a list of top stories culled from major newspapers, magazines, and websites, these stories cover the most important news happening in the field
• interviews (audio, video, and text) with researchers, newsmakers, and other persons of interest to the field of basic renewable and sustainable energy research.

JRSE research papers will be freely accessible through 2009. In 2010, a subscription will be required. If you find this to be a useful journal, please let me know, and Milner Library can consider a subscription for 2010.

Gartner Portal

In partnership with the Administrative Information Systems department, Milner Library is able to provide access to the Gartner Portal to all faculty, students and staff of Illinois State University. The Gartner Portal provides an extensive collection of reports on topics such as business intelligence, IT asset management, open source, security and privacy, and web services.

The Gartner Portal can be accessed via Milner’s website – http://www.library.ilstu.edu/ – or directly via – https://gartner.ilstu.edu/.

A Gartner representative gave a demo of the portal this morning at the College of Business. Here are some highlights from that session:

Magic Quadrants – Allow you to understand the relative positions of vendors in a market. These reports are updated approximately every 18 months, unless a market is very stable. Each report includes a market overview, the vendor inclusion and exclusion criteria, the evaluation criteria for “ability to execute” & “completeness of vision,” an explanation of the challengers, leaders, niche players and visionaries, and the individual vendors’ strengths and cautions.

Hype Cycles – Allow you to understand the relative maturity of technologies in a given domain. The graphs show where a technology is on the cycle of trigger technology, to peak of inflated expectations, to trough of disillusionment, to slope of enlightenment, to plateau of productivity. The graphs also use symbols to indicate the number of years to mainstream adoption. You can click on any of the technologies on the graph to see a definition, a justification, the business impact areas, selected vendors, market penetration, maturity, user advice, and more. These graphs seem like a great resource for students struggling to identify a topic for a project or research paper.

Research - You can browse and search all of the Gartner reports. You can browse by topic, industry, author, date, and more. All of the reports are available in html and pdf. The Gartner rep said that these reports can be shared with ISU students, as long as they are not made freely accessible to anyone. You can also create an alert so that you receive an email when a new report of interest is available.

Research Fast Finder – Near the middle of the main Gartner page, you can browse by markets, topics, and industry. One industry that would be of particular interest to ISU staff and faculty is the Education industry.

Teleconferences - Gartner hosts teleconferences that any ISU faculty, student or staff can register for. If you are unable to participate in a teleconference or if you would like to use a teleconference in class, recordings are available for download in the Replay Archive. The Gartner rep indicated that these recordings are usually available for approximately 6 months.

If you have any questions or comments about the Gartner Portal, please feel free to contact me.