The UC Berkeley Geospatial Innovation Facility (GIF), the Bay Area Automated Mapping Association (BAAMA), and the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) Nor Cal Region are sponsoring a GIS Day event on campus from 3-8:30pm on GIS Day, November 18, 2009. The GIS Day 2009 event will take place in and around the GIF, located in 111 Mulford Hall on the west side of campus.

The program is presented in two sessions, a university/higher education session and a professional session. A schedule of events and a call for presentations and posters can be found on the GIF's GIS Day site. Attendance is free, but you are asked to RSVP if you plan to attend.

Information from last year's GIS Day 2008 events at the GIF can be found on the site as well.

National Public Radio (NPR) has posted an interesting map visualization of the United States' electric grid. Users can add and remove various layers from the map including existing lines (from 345 - 1,000kV), proposed lines, sources of power at power plants, solar power transmission lines, and wind power transmission lines. Additionally, the map displays the location and production levels of power plants around the United States. In terms of green energy, the map displays potential for wind and solar power as well as the lines in place to transmit that power to users.

From the map' site: "The U.S. electric grid is a complex network of independently owned and operated power plants and transmission lines. Aging infrastructure, combined with a rise in domestic electricity consumption, has forced experts to critically examine the status and health of the nation's electrical systems."

The map's source data are from a range of sources that include: American Electric Power, American Wind Energy Association, Center for American Progress, Department of Energy, Edison Electric Institute, Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Research Institute, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Western Resource Advocates.

Visualizing the U.S. Electric Grid / Producer: Andrew Prince; Designer: Alyson Hurt; Editors: Avie Schneider
and Vikki Valentine; Supervising Editors: Anne Gudenkauf and Quinn
O'Toole; Additional Research: Jenny Gold; Database and GIS Analysis:
Robert Benincasa 

ESRI has made an index to over 80,000 articles, reports, conference proceedings, books, and journals available online through the ESRI Library. Users can search either keywords or, using an advanced search function, for specific fields, dates, and resources. From the site: "This bibliography covers the literature of geographic information systems, science, and technology. It indexes journals, conference proceedings, books, and reports from the origins of GIS to the present."

The site also contains a link to the GIS Dictionary, a useful glossary of GIS terms.

Full text PDFs of some articles are available through the site. Other publications can be found using either OskiCat for UC Berkeley campus libraries or NextGen Melvyl for UC-wide and worldwide libraries.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS), along with the Association of American State Geologists (AASG) have released the National Geologic Map Database (NGMDB), an online resource for geologic mapping of the United States. The NGMDB is, according to the site, ". . . intended to: 1) give you a quick browse and query of our Nation's geologic maps, in a standardized format, and 2) link you to the source information found via the NGMDB Map Catalog and Geologic Names Lexicon. More than 80,000 maps and reports, by 370 publishers, are accessible.

The Data Portal allows users to navigate through the geology of the United States geographically, view map unit information for specific locations, and includes an interactive geological materials legend to help users understand more about the geology of specific areas.

Senator Al Franken may be a comedian, US Senator, and a cartographer? In this video, he draws a map of the United States freehand. It may not be to scale, however.