A New Method for Locating and Accessing Library Map Collections Google Map “Mashups” Kristi Jensen, Map Librarian University of Minnesota – Twin Cities

Searching for maps is hard. Why not? How do users find maps? Can we improve it? Browsing is inconvenient..

“a mashup is a web application that combines data from more than one source into a single integrated tool.” -Wikipediaweb application Example: Some Map MARC records have coordinates. Embedded map applications, like Google Maps, allow you to map them. Librarians (testing their programming skills) can combine them into “a single integrated tool” that we call: M AP H APPY. M AP H APPY : Why not

Step 1: Get the data M AP H APPY : How we did it Step 2: Build the database Step 3: Map to interface

Step 1: Get the data M AP H APPY : Phase 1 Library Map Count Main1196 Science201 Agriculture125 Duluth 1119 Duluth 297 Forestry45 Archives22 Fisheries6 Crookston2 Veterinary1 Health1 Total1815 A focus on Minnesota Maps.

Step 1: Get the data M AP H APPY : Phase 1 The pilot showed about 66% of the records had some coordinate info. Records that can’t be displayed on the map can still be displayed as search results….so results are similar to those from an OPAC search.

Step 1: Get the data M AP H APPY : Phase 1 Many records contained faulty data and required clean-up. Outliers were easier to identify during the pilot phase. Minnesota maps in Missouri?

Step 2: Build the database M AP H APPY : Phase 2 The corrected records were downloaded into a separate database with the MARC fields we found valuable.

Step 2: Build the database ACCESS DENIED M AP H APPY : Phase 2 Gaining access to a university server to run a SQL database was not easy.

Step 3: Map to interface M AP H APPY : Phase 3 The Google Map API is open source code, but “some assembly required.”

Map Happy Google Map API Key Gmap.js search.php or data.xml mySQL database home.phtml style.css M AP H APPY : How it Works

Step 3: Map to interface M AP H APPY : Phase 3 The map interface displays maps based on their center point, then links back to the catalog record.

Step 1: Get the data Step 2: Build the database Step 3: Map to interface M AP H APPY : How we did it

Step 1: Get the data Step 2: Build the database Step 3: Map to interface ACCESS DENIED Roadmap to Success!

M AP H APPY : Intuitive Interface

M AP H APPY : Search functions

M AP H APPY : Discovery Tools

Scalability to records with no coordinates? Solutions: create coords programmatically based on subject-headers Clean-up records manually using physical map coordinates. Incorporation into formal library catalog? User testing suggested that users expect each record in Map- happy to link to a digital map… How to incorporate digital maps/air photos User-interface (source code bare-bones…need php and mysql queries for searching and linking back to results…programmer!) Many, many more…. M AP H APPY : Issues

M AP H APPY : Try it out!