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Many of you have followed the newspaper articles describing the ongoing consideration of last summer’s data sharing request by the Cass County Board of Commissioners. Their initial reaction and request for more information was typical of many counties across the state.

We hope that the ultimate decision of the Cass County Commissioners to participate will likewise be reflective of many counties that have not yet decided to share the four crucial data layers that were requested.

“On Monday, the commissioners voted unanimously to hand over data for a statewide GIS map that includes multiple ‘layers’ of data accessible at no charge to anyone with Internet access. They will provide roads, addresses, parcel numbers and corporate boundaries for Cass County.”

Here are the links to the three on-line articles from the Pharos-Tribune about the data request and Cass County’s response.

Commissioners reluctant to give out mapping information, Tuesday, August 19, 2008

An uncertain course, Thursday, October 02, 2008

Commissioners OK state’s mapping request , Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Kudos to Kevin Lilly for a great job capturing so many of the subtleties of this important story.

We had an excellent group of candidates this year! Thank you to everyone who ran for one of the eight open board seats. Here are our newly elected Board Members:

Municipal Rural Sector - Jeff Steele, GIS Coordinator, City of Greensburg
Federal Sector - Bruce Nielsen, US Department of Agriculture - NRCS
State Sector - Joel Bump, GeoSpatial Solutions Supervisor, Indiana Department of Transportation
Non-Profit Sector - Fiona Solkowski, Conservation Information Manager, The Nature Conservancy
At Large Sector - Brooke Gajownik, 911 Address Coordinator, Hamilton County Sheriff's Office
At Large Sector - Shaun Scholer, GIS Manager, City of Richmond/Wayne County GIS Interlocal
Critical Infrastructure - Steve Adams, Manager of Geospatial Services, Duke Energy (Midwest)
Utility Sector - Leane Welsh, GIS/GPS Technician II, City of Westfield Public Works Department

Congratulations to all of our newly elected board members. These new board members begin serving their three year term starting at our Annual Board meeting on February 16, 2009.

Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN made the front page of the Winter 2008 GIS Educator newsletter from ESRI's Education Team . Researchers from Purdue University's Project Vulcan used GIS analysis to contribute to a groundbreaking carbon emissions inventory. What is unique about the story, is it tells how the Purdue University GIS Librarians, typically not part of a project research team, became a welcomed resource supplying valuable “GIS support to the team and nagging about the importance of metadata and data archiving.” Click here to read the full cover story in the ESRI GIS Educator newsletter.

The Executive Committee was comparing notes the other day about some of our favorite Internet “GIS News” resources, so I decided to share a few:

The good old standards:
http://www.giscafe.com/
http://www.directionsmag.com/
http://www.geoplace.com
http://www.geospatial-solutions.com/
http://www.gisuser.com/
http://www.vector1media.com/
http://www.govtech.com/gt/117676
http://www.gita.org/
http://www.asprs.org/

I recently discovered a couple of great GIS PODCAST resources. They are:
http://veryspatial.com/
http://www.esri.com/news/podcasts/

I love the convenience, on my I-Touch I subscribe to the RSS feeds from the news websites and I download the podcasts directly from I-Tunes.

I'm sure there are more sites. If I didn't list your favorite, please email me yours and I'll add them to the list.

Our 2009 Indiana GIS Conference will be held this year in the heart of downtown Bloomington IN. Our new venue for 2009 will provide everyone with easy access to local restaurants, college night life, as well as access to Indiana Universities computing and training resources. This year we are excited to be offering hands-on CEU credited GIS Workshops hosted by University Information Technology Services (UITS). We have also added a money-saving one day registration option for attendees to allow people who want to make our centrally-located conference a one-day-trip.

All conference attendees are also invited to come early and attend IGIC's Annual Board meeting to be held at IU's Wrubel Computing Center (WCC) on Monday afternoon, February 16th from 4 to 7 pm. As a bonus, from 3 to 4 pm on Monday afternoon we will take a tour of Indiana Universities newest super computing and secure data storage facility. The tour will start exactly at 3pm, so don't be late!



Early-Bird Registration for the 2009 Indiana GIS Conference ends this week January 17th, Click here to save money and register today!

In a continuing effort to recognize creative and practical applications of GIS in Indiana, IGIC will be presenting up to six awards in the categories below. Nominations deadline is January 31, 2009.

1. Small Community (population under 50,000)
2. Larger Community (population over 50,000)
3. County
4. Educational
5. State or Federal Agency
6. Business or Commercial

Finalists will be chosen prior to the 2009 Conference, where awards will be presented. Winners will receive two passes for additional guests to attend the ceremony.

For more information click here, or download a nomination form here.