FANTOM PLANET

Andrew asked if I could recommend some resources for GIS analysis and cartography. So, I went through my recent Amazon.com purchase list and put together a table. I could add all of the ESRI press books, but many of those are heavily ESRI button-centric. Instead, the books below are focused on theory and methodology. The ESRI books below are actually useful books about the science and mathematics behind GIS analysis.

I’d like to note that Elements of Cartography, may be a little dated since it was last updated in 1996. It’s a good read and one of those books that ties you to the art of Cartography.

There are some cultural geography books in the list too. Everything we do involves people and I’ve been working on some stuff involving mapping cultures. If you’re interested in activism or NGO mapping, these books can be helpful rounding your geographic education.

Why Geography Matters is on the list. Harm de Blij has written many human and cultural geography textbooks in America and this book, I feel is a good read about why having an understanding of geography matters. He focuses on climate change, the rise of China, and the effects of terrorism. You’ll feel that you have chosen the right line of work.

Finally, there are hundreds of books on spatial databases, GIS for the Web, and all sorts of different avenues that geography and GIS cover. As much as I’m trying, I can’t seem to read or buy them all. I would love to, but I like my work-life configuration right now. These are a few titles to get you started. I hope others make recommendations of their own favorite materials as well.

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It’s late, and I’m flipping channels and I stopped at PBS where Jeff Bezos of Amazon was on Charlie Rose introducing the Amazon Kindle. I became totally intrigued about the device, especially since I’m a grad school student hoofin’ a large amount of books around. I was also interested whether it had texts on GIS and other related topics that I may be reading soon. So, I looked at Amazon’s Kindle site, did a search for “GIS” and came back with a ton of hits for Kindle enabled products. Although, the GIS texts for Kindle look like they’re still the same price as the hardcopy and ESRI Press books are not enabled for Kindle.

Anyway, I think I’d like to try it out. Perhaps I’ll wait for the second edition that has a GPS and someone’s slippy maps rolling across it enabled with MetaCarta OnDemand so I know where I’m reading about.

I happened to come in to a copy of A to Z GIS (ISBN 978-1-58948-140-4), by ESRI. It’s a nice pocket-sized book that tells you all the definitions and concepts of (ESRI) GIS. I like it because, even though I know a lot, I sure don’t apply or remember everything about GIS. This is a handy reference guide not only for GIS beginners, but also for those of us long in the GIS tooth.