Geographic Information Systems

Databases: find journal articles, technical reports, standards, etc.

• Academic Search Premier. Provides full text for over 3,200 scholarly publications.
• AGRICOLA. Agricultural Online Access. Sponsored by National Agriculture Library. 1970 to present.
• AGRIS. Sponsored by the United Nations. Food and Agriculture Organization. 1965 to present.
• American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Civil Engineering Database. 1973 to present.
• Business Source Premier. Provides full text for over 2500 business journals.
• Citeseer.com. Scientific Literature Digital Library. NEC Corp. Indexes Postscript and PDF research articles on the Web. Has citation searching component.
• Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) Scientific and Technical Information Network. Access to all unclassified, unlimited documents added from late December 1974 to present, many from 1998 to present in full text.
• Google Scholar. Beta version, under construction. Indexes scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports. Google Scholar includes articles from a variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities. They rank results based on their relevance criteria.
• IEEE Xplore. Index to IEEE and IET publications in electrical engineering, computer science, and electronics.  Full text of IEEE and IET journals, conference proceedings and standards is available at Fogler Library.
• Ingenta (Formerly UnCover). Coverage is 1988 - Present.
• MasterFILE Premier. Provides full text for over 1,830 general reference, business, consumer health, general science. Full text extends back to January, 1990. Indexing and abstracts is available for an additional 1,000 journals.
• MInd: The Meetings Index. Provides a free databases of future national and international conferences, regional meetings, and short courses.  
• National Environmental Publications Internet Site (NEPIS). Index to over 9,500 full-text EPA reports.
• National Technical Information Service (NTIS) Database. 1990 to present.
• National Standards Systems Network (NSSN).
• NASA Technical Report Server (NTRS). This database collects, archives, and disseminates aerospace information produced by NASA and other relevant worldwide research. 
• Science Accelerator, Office of Scientific and Technical Information, U.S. Department of Energy. Search collections of DOE research results, project descriptions, and accomplishments. These collections enable you to find out about ongoing research projects, explore significant DOE discoveries, learn about DOE Nobel Prize Winners, access and search scientific e-prints, locate science conference papers and proceedings, patents, and more.
• Science.gov. New improved gateway to U.S. government publications and web sites. 12 major science agencies are collaborating on this project. They have recently added relevancy-ranked order to the results of a search. It includes 30 databases and over 1700 web sites.
• Searchable Physics Information Notices (SPIN). A bibliographic database published by the American Institute of Physics. It is updated every 2 weeks with coverage of all AIP journals and proceedings. Coverage also includes journals from other societies including the Electrochemical Society, Russian Academy of Sciences, etc.
• TechStreet: Technical Information Superstore. Most comprehensive index for engineering standards. Also indexes books, materials physical property data, software and free professional trade magazines.
• TRIS Online. 1960's to present. Produced by the Transportation Research Board and other organizations.
• URISA Proceedings and Journal articles index. Coverage is 1987 - 2002. Keyword search and table of contents available. 
• U.S. Dept. of Energy. Scientific and Technical Information.
• U.S. EPA Web Search. Provides advanced searching of the EPA web site.
• U.S. Patent database. See also the Patent and Trademark Depository Library web site.
• U.S.G.S. Water Resources of the United States.

Dictionaries and Encyclopedias

• Access Science. Online version of the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology and the McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms. Includes over 8,500 online encyclopedia articles and 15,000 illustrations from the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology, 10th Edition and regularly updated, fully-searchable media-rich content, terms, images and video.Includes over 8,500 online encyclopedia articles and 15,000 illustrations from the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology, 10th Edition and regularly updated, fully-searchable media-rich content, terms, images and video.
• GIS Dictionary. Association for Geographic Information.
• Glossary for the Geographer's Craft. Univ. of Colorado.
• Glossary of GIS terms. Compiled by ESRI.
• Infoplease.com. Encyclopedia, almanac, atlas, dictionary and thesaurus in one resource with good science and technology coverage. Nobel and science awards page. 

Educational Resources

• Discovery Channel. Discovery School.  Try the brain boosters.
• IEEE Virtual Museum. 
• Discover engineering.
• Engineer Girl. For everyone with lot’s of links and information.
• Engineering your Future.
• Frank Potter's Science Gems. Great links to great resources for students, parents, teachers, etc. Sorted by categories and grade levels.
• Future Scientists & Engineers of America (FSEA).
• Gaia Crossroad Project. Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. Satellite imagery for students and the community.
• How Stuff Works.
• Living Internet. How does it work and how was it invented. Programming methods for the internet.
• Maine Engineering Promotion Council.
• Math/Science Network. Expanding Your Horizons.     
• Mathtools.net. Collection of tutorials, books, and web sites on programming languages including MATLAB, C, C++, JAVA, Visual Basic, etc. Full text tutorials are extensive.     
• National Engineers Week.
• Try Science. Sponsored by the New York Hall of Science.

Maine Resources

• Gulf of Maine Coastal Program. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 
• Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
• Maine Economic Growth Council.
• Maine Economic Research Institute.
• Maine Engineering Promotion Council.
• Maine GIS Users Group.
• Maine Office of GIS. Provide online data and MEGIS (Maine GIS Images). Links to Maine and New England GIS resources.
• Maine Technology Institute.  
• Maine's Software and Information Technology Industry Association (MESDA)
• National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA). Composed of three member institutions: University of California, Santa Barbara; the University at Buffalo; and the University of Maine.
• New England Chapter of URISA.
• Northeast Arc Users Group (NEARC).
• University of Maine. Department of Spatial Information Science and Engineering.

Professional Societies

• American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM).
• American Geographical Society (AGS).
• American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).
• American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS)
• Association of American Geographers (AAG)
• Association of Consulting Foresters (ACF).
• Association for Geographic Information (AGI). UK
• Canadian Institute of Geomatics 
• GeoData Alliance
• Geoscience Information Society.  
• Geospatial Information and Technology Association (GITA).
• GIS Certification Institute.
• Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association (GSDI).
• IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society.
• International Association of Assessing Officers (IAAO).
• International Association of Geodesy.
• International Cartographic Association (ICA).
• International Society of Spatial Sciences (ISSS).
• North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS).
• Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC).
• Pan American Institute of Geography and History (PAIGH).
• Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society.
• Society of Cartographers. (UK)
• Society of American Military Engineers (SAME).
• University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS).
• Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA).

Government Agencies

• Bureau of Transportation Statistics: Geographic Information Services. Offers downloadable spatial data sets related to transportation features.
• Federal Geographic Data Committee. This is a 19 member interagency committee that is developing the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). The NSDI encompasses policies, standards, and procedures for organizations to cooperatively produce and share geographic data.
• Geographic Information Science and Technology (GIST) Group. They are a section of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
• National Geophysical Data Center. Portal of online data.
• National States Geographic Information Council.
• Open GIS Consortium.
• Scitechresources.gov. Catalog of U.S. government science and technology web sites.
• U.S. Bureau of Land Management. They maintain the Geospatial Information Center. 
• U.S. Census Bureau. Maps and Cartographic Products.
• U.S. Dept. of Transportation. About DOT resource page.
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Geographic Information Systems.
• U.S. Geological Survey. 
• U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service.
• U.S. National Weather Service. National Climatic Data Center.

Journals

• GIS Journals. Journals available freely over the internet or through subscritions maintained by Fogler Library, University of Maine. Some titles only available to the University of Maine community.  

Software

• ArcExlporer. Free software from ESRI over the internet that allows basic GIS functions. Good way to publish your data.  
• ESRI. GIS and mapping software.
• GeoCommunity. GIS Software.  
• Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS) GIS Homepage. Includes downloadable data sets for GIS. This is free software with raster, topological vector, image processing, and graphics production functionality that operates on various platforms.

Data Sets

• Cartographic Boundary Files. From the U.S. Census Bureau. Files from the 2000 census containing congressional districts, school districts, urban areas, etc. Files are for use with GIS systems.
• EarthRef Digital Archive (ERDA). contains any type of digital data object associated with the Earth Sciences.
• Environmental Services Data and Information Management.
• FedStats. Gateway to statistics from over 100 U.S. federal agencies.
• GEO Data Portal. Produced by the United Nations Environment Programme. (UNEP) Authoritative source for data sets used by UNEP in their reports.
• GeoData.gov. Federal, state and local geographic data.
• Geo-Data Explorer (GEODE) is a free service offered by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). It provides digital geographically referenced data to the desktop computers of any user. Great resource for geo-spatial data.
• Geography. USGS. Includes access to the National Map.
• Geography Network. Resource for data, maps and software.
• GIS Data Depot.
• GIS Monitor: Ultimate Map/GIS Directory.
• Landscan. Landscan data comprise a worldwide population database compiled on a 30" X 30" latitude/longitude grid. Free registration is required.
• National Elevation Data Set.
• National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service. (NOAA) Their mission is to provide global environmental data resources. Links to data are made available for climatic, coastal, geophysical and environmental resources 
• National Geodetic Survey. NOAA.
• National Geospatial Data Clearinghouse. Sponsored by the Federal Geographic Data Committee.
• National Transportation Library: Mapping Center and Digital Library.
• Office of Coast Survey. NOAA.
• PANGAEA. Public data library aimed at archiving, publishing and distributing geocoded data with special emphasis on environmental, marine and geological research.
• U.S. Census Bureau. Maps and Cartographic Products.
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Geographic Information Systems.
• U.S. Geological Survey. Geography Home Page Products including digital data, maps, and software.

Standards

• Geospatial Metadata Standards.

Internet Directories

• Amazing Environmental Organization Web Directory.
• Geoplace.com. Good directory of companies, news, product reviews, etc.
• GESource. Evaluated geography and environment web resources for the UK.
• GIS Internet Resources. Topographic Engineering Center. U.S. Army
• GIS Lounge. Link library, industry news, careers, software, etc.
• GIS Monitor. Ultimate Map/GIS Directory.
• Guide to GIS Resources on the Internet. Univ. of California, Berkeley
• Infomine: Scholarly Internet Resource Collections: Maps and GIS. University of California, Riverside

Raymond H. Fogler Library University of Maine Orono, ME 04469 207-581-1661

Updated: 06/27/2008
by Martin Wallace