Featured Speakers
Uncovering
the Layers: The Complex Origins of GIS
John Cloud, Geographer/Writer/Editor,
NOAA Central Library,
John.Cloud@noaa.gov
Geographic information systems (GIS)
considered as technologies and practices have a curious history, or rather lack
of history. GIS is generally considered
to have sprung to life as a rather well developed assemblage of computer
mapping and database software and hardware around the late 1950s or a decade or
so later. From that point forward, GIS has evolved continuously-- but what
about from that same point backward, into the supposed "pre-history"
of GIS?
There are two fascinating origins to
GIS hidden underneath the nominal story.
The digital implementation of GIS is a legacy of the Cold War, as was
almost all development of pioneering digital computer systems. The Army's Topographic Engineers implemented an earlier project
for computer mapping and spatial analysis for tactical mobility studies, called
Military Geographic Intelligence Systems (MGIS), which was used extensively in
the Vietnam War. Later, the
"M" was erased, and geographic information systems (GIS) emerged into
civilian application. One of the first of these was LUNR, the first NY GIS
system, which linked the Systems Development Corporation,
a major player in Cold War classified military science, to off-site Cornell
research labs and civilian computer mapping designers at Harvard's Laboratory
for Spatial Analysis.
But there is an even deeper, more
interesting, and far darker story yet to tell about GIS. Systems such as LUNR implemented cartographic
practices and database and spatial analysis structures that had themselves been
invented and developed over a human generation earlier, in a golden era of
translucent and transparent analog map overlay invention, now long forgotten,
that is the real origins of GIS.
Attention to the beginnings is critical, as the complexly inter-twined
possibilities and pitfalls of GIS can be glimpsed in its earliest
applications. I will consider the case
of the Roosevelt Administration's national exercise to deal with the urban
housing crisis of the Great Depression.
This began with progressive social planning, but, as the overlays were
piled upon one other, culminated in the infamous red-lining maps. Every
contemporary urban GIS application now addresses the consequences of what
happened in that primordial era, whether today's GIS practitioners realize the legacy,
or not.
USGS's National
Map: A New and Effective Way to Obtain GIS Data
Hank Garie, Executive Director,
State of
William F. Pelgrin, Director, NYS Office of Cyber
Security and Critical Infrastructure Coordination (NYS CSCIC)
As Director of the New York
State Office of Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructure Coordination
(CSCIC), William Pelgrin is responsible for leading
and coordinating
As part of his duties, Mr. Pelgrin also chairs the New York State Public/Private
Sector Cyber Security Workgroup, comprising a talented cadre of representatives
from State and local government, academia, the private sector, as well as the
federal government. The Workgroup is charged with a number of tasks to
help better ensure
Mr. Pelgrin
also Chairs the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC)
which currently includes participation from 49 states and the District of
Columbia to share important cyber security information. The MS-ISAC was recently recognized by the Department of Homeland
Security for its proactive role in bringing the states together.
In November 2003, Mr. Pelgrin was appointed as a charter member of the Global
Council of CSOs (Cyber Security Officers), a think
tank comprising a group of influential corporate, government and academic
security experts dedicated to raising the awareness of online security issues.
William Pelgrin
has more than twenty years of experience in