Abstracts


Monday, June 14, 2021

Drones in Libraries: The Development of an Interdisciplinary Research Service Using Drones and 3D Modeling Technologies at Ryerson University Library

Dan Jakubek, Ryerson University

On June 1, 2019, new rules for flying a Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) or “drone” in Canada came into effect, requiring drone pilot certification to operate any drone between 250 g and 25 kg. In response to new regulations and the needs of our researchers, the Ryerson Library has developed a research service dedicated to supporting the use of drones and 3D modelling technologies. This presentation will highlight our progress to date, existing collaborations and future directions for our research and service.


University of Manitoba GISHub: ESRI Site License Integration using ArcGIS Online, Hub, and Enterprise

Meg Miller & Mullai Manickavalli, University of Manitoba

The University of Manitoba Libraries has been working to add a geospatial data repository to its suite of service offerings. Initially this project was conceived to be a secure local storage solution for geospatial data, but upon stepping back and looking at the tools we have access to under our ESRI site license the project was re-imagined to encompass the following:

  1. Semi-automated management and integration of UM ESRI site license;
  2. Discovery and access point for proprietary and open researcher data;
  3. Secure local environment for active-use geospatial datasets.
This session will discuss our experience and outcomes based on our roles as the project librarian and systems analyst and answer any questions the audience might have on implementation at their own institution.


From coast to coast to coast with NetCDF files

daniel Brendle-Moczuk, University of Victoria

While the multidimensional open source NetCDF data file format has been around since c.1990s, some users, including geospatial librarians, are not familiar, and/or are frustrated with this data format. NetCDFs are used to store and disseminate data such as climatic, (climate modelling, precipitation, temperature, wind, etc) oceanic, (bathymetry, currents, temperature, etc) and usually in time series. This session will provide a brief overview of the history of NetCDFs, their changes over the years, and how to interact with NetCDFs within a GIS environment, specifically QGIS and ArcGIS. In addition researchers want to deposit their NetCDFs into data repositories. Finally, this session will highlight real life uses of various NetCDF data.


Retrieving geographic information from historical Ottawa texts

<Rebecca Bartlett, Carleton University

The Ottawa Resource Collection in the Carleton University Library’s Archives & Special Collections contains rich details about the history of Ottawa locations, from specific buildings to entire neighbourhoods. The digitization of the collection introduced the possibility of facilitating local-area research by extracting those locations from the texts and linking corresponding geospatial data (such as latitude-longitude coordinates). Limitations with existing geoparsers led to the development of a geographic information retrieval tool for identifying and geolocating Ottawa locations, and successes and challenges will be discussed.


Mapping Loyalist Migrations

Liz Sutherland & Jordan Fuller, Western University

The American Revolution displaced approximately 60,000 people between 1775 and 1783. Loyalist Migrations (loyalistmigrations.ca) is a spatial history project that aims to digitize and visualize the journeys of these individuals in an interactive GIS dashboard, hosted on the project’s open data site. It is also an experiment in collaborative public history research and GIS data entry. The project is a partnership between the Huron Community History Centre, the Map and Data Centre at Western Libraries, and the United Empire Loyalist Association of Canada (UELAC). The project team is drawing upon a variety of archival, scholarly, and genealogical sources, to visualize the scope and diversity of the migrations. In the years to come, we will provide new research and analysis based on this data.

This presentation will focus on the GIS components of Loyalist Migrations. From data cleaning (QA/QC) to data sharing (open data site and dashboard) and research collaboration (public survey).


A Shifting Landscape: A StoryMap of the 1993 Lemieux Landslide

René Duplain & Pierre Leblanc, Université d'Ottawa

In this StoryMap, we will explore the 1993 Lemieux landslide event and present complementary resources gathered by the University of Ottawa Library staff.


Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Preserving Government Records and Canada’s Cartographic Heritage: The Role of the Archives

Erika Reinhardt, Library & Archives Canada

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) serves as the official repository of records of the Government of Canada, preserving and providing access to Canada’s documentary heritage for the benefit of present and future generations. To fulfill its mandate, LAC makes decisions about the archival and historical value of government records, including federal maps, cartographic records and geospatial data from federal institutions. When looking at the vast machinery of government, you may have wondered who decides which government records to preserve and which to dispose of. What considerations go into those decisions and how have these notions evolved over time. How has new and rapidly evolving technology created challenges for archives to preserve geospatial data? This presentation examines the role of archivists as influencers in the record lifecycle. It explains how archives interact with federal map and data creators, gives an overview of the Government Records Disposition Program and outlines the process for appraising, selecting and preserving Canada’s federal maps, cartographic materials and geospatial datasets. Understanding the role of the archives and the mechanics of records disposition benefits researchers searching and discovering geographic information and historical context behind government decision-making, surveying, mapping and data collection activities.


Mapping maps in map collections. The development and implementation of a shared print archive for Western Canadian topographic maps

COPPUL Span Phase 6 Working Group

In this lightning talk, members of the COPPUL SPAN Phase 6 Working Group will speak to the process of evaluating and considering maps for shared print programs (SPPs). The group will explore how maps, compiled drawn and printed, contents deposited and containers configured within libraries and archives could be drawn into new projects aimed at their coordinated preservation and long-term access.

The Council of Prairie and Pacific Libraries' (COPPUL) Shared Print Archive Network (SPAN) aims to develop and maintain a decentralized shared print archive across its 22 participating libraries. SPAN is currently developing Phase 6: Western Canadian maps. Because of the unique nature of map collections within academic libraries, a working group of COPPUL librarians familiar with cartographic materials was struck to develop and oversee this phase. The working group will be responsible for defining the parameters of the phase, identifying materials for inclusion, and developing procedures for inventory.


Copyright in Fire Insurance Plans

Jean Dryden

The fire insurance plans preserved in Canadian repositories are among the most valuable records documenting the development of Canada’s communities during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, for nearly three decades, making copies for researchers and (more recently) digitizing for online access, has been subject to a copyright “chill” as a result of the copyright claims of the companies that created these plans and their successors. This presentation establishes their current term of copyright protection, explores the extent to which the copyright concerns are justified, and offers possible solutions.


Using GIS to develop a vaccine pharmacy locator app to support COVID-19 vaccine distribution in Ontario

Carina Luo, University of Windsor

The spread of infectious disease is inherently a spatial process; therefore, geographic information system (GIS) technologies are playing a critical role in understanding and responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, web-based mapping applications have been developed by organizations around the world to support the dissemination and provision of information on COVID-19. Inspired by those common efforts against pandemic, a GIS web application was developed by the Geospatial Data Analyst at Leddy Library, University of Windsor to help Ontario residents to locate COVID-19 vaccine pharmacy providers close to them. The app allows users to search for an address or click on the map to view pharmacies within a specified search radius, along with their detailed information including addresses, phone numbers, operating hours, and website links. Users also have the option to overlay the locations of vaccine pharmacies with the distributions of target population groups at the neighbourhood level to see if there are any service gaps that may help improve the vaccine distribution planning and implementation. The presentation will demonstrate the main features of the app and discuss the potential role of academic libraries can play in supporting the local community as well as the opportunities they encountered during pandemic.


Mapping at scale: Putting McMaster’s community-engaged research on the map with collaboration and shared infrastructure

Jay Brodeur, Christine Homuth & Leora Sas van der Linden, McMaster University

For those working in libraries and archives, some of the most exciting and rewarding work involves collaborating with campus partners to perform new analyses, create new visualizations, and develop new systems and services. At the same time, building new things also prompts an assortment of questions around how to (and who should) scale and sustain them into the future. Given their long history of stewarding information, linking systems, and providing services, academic libraries and archives are well-suited to occupy the nexus of these two interests and help develop novel but robust, maintainable solutions.

In late 2019, the McMaster University Library partnered with the Faculty of Social Sciences on a project to highlight and visualize the community-engaged research work of Social Science faculty members at local, regional, and international scales. Over the following year, the project team collaborated to build systems and workflows to collect these activities as structured data in McMaster's Research Information Management System and dynamically populate an ArcGIS Story Map that disseminates this information to audiences within and beyond the university. By offering their subject matter and systems expertise, the Library helped the Faculty of Social Sciences realize its goals, while developing the underlying workflows and infrastructure that is scalable and sustainable in the long-term.

In this talk, we will provide an overview of our collaborative work to map community-engaged research activities within the Faculty of Social Sciences, and reflect on the role of the Library to facilitate and steward these kinds of projects.


Building a virtual lab: connecting students to Carleton's map & GIS collection

Meaghan Kenny, Mike Reynolds & Sherri Sunstrum, Carleton University

Carleton Library's map and gis specialists provide both reference and instructional services related to the cartographic collection, in both print and digital formats. Each term we go into the classroom to demo GIS software and show students how to access geospatial data; we also invite classes into the map library, to learn about print maps and how to use them in research. Our maps and GIS services are widely used by student and faculty alike, in many disciplines.

In January 2021, we were approached by a Geomatics faculty member to provide a map and GIS lab, that we would normally present in person. Due to other commitments, the lab would have to be given asynchronously. This would be our first asynchronous virtual map/GIS lab.

This presentation will show what worked, what did not work as well and lessons learned from those challenges. Meaghan Kenny will discuss her experience pre-recording the GIS component. Sherri will discuss the process of building a virtual lab with print maps; part of that process involved bringing in Mike Reynolds, the library's communication officer and videographer extraordinaire, who will discuss his experience with recording and editing the map lab video.


Wednesday, June 16, 2021

Land Information Ontario Imagery Acquisition Program Updates

Bryce Matthews, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry

This presentation will provide a detailed update on recent and upcoming high resolution imagery acquisitions by Land Information Ontario as well as recent activities in the program implemented to improve data access.


Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources Forestry, Provincial Mapping Unit Elevation Project Update

Craig Onafychuk, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry

This presentation will provide a detailed update on recent and upcoming high resolution and high quality elevation acquisitions by the Provincial Mapping Unit of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry and an overview of data discovery and access mechanisms from Ontario GeoHub.


Scholars GeoPortal and LIO: Supporting the dissemination and archiving of provincial imagery products in Ontario university libraries

Kara Handren & Amber Leahey, University of Toronto

Scholars GeoPortal (https://geo.scholarsportal.info) is a province-wide geospatial data repository maintained by Ontario academic university libraries. Built in 2012 and developed and hosted at Scholars Portal (Ontario Council of University Libraries), the GeoPortal’s collections include provincially licensed imagery data from the Ministry of Natural Resources via Land Information Ontario. Through the GeoPortal, researchers across Ontario academic institutions can access and download hundreds of thousands of individual image tiles from over 106 MNR image services spanning 20 years. As this data becomes increasingly in demand and grows in size and complexity, developing new processes and workflows to ensure continued, effective access remains essential. With the GeoPortal embarking on a redevelopment, this unique relationship between Ontario University libraries and LIO will also play a central role in considerations for the future. This presentation will discuss this relationship, recent infrastructure developments to support big data transfers, as well as current redevelopment considerations and data management strategies at Scholars Portal for the archiving and dissemination of large-volume imagery series.