Breakout: Library Systems: A GIS Perspective

14 Dec 2020
10:30 am - 11:45 am MT

Breakout: Library Systems: A GIS Perspective

Starts @ 9:30 am PT  |  10:30 am MT  |  11:30 am CT  |  12:30 pm ET

A Geographic Information System provides a company or organization with many different mapping and analytical toolsets. GIS analysis and maps can help detect and show potential spatial trends in the data. These trends could be at the library level to see how each library in the system is performing. The trends could also be at a larger level, like zip codes. Is there a spatial trend in the location of library patrons? What is the age breakdown of patrons? Are they checking out physical items or digital ones? Like these, there are many other questions that can be asked and answered if there are data available. GIS and cartography excel at displaying these data and potentially finding hidden trends that are not noticeable when the data remains in a tabular format.

Analytically, GIS can also help a library system in examining its delivery. How many delivery hubs are needed? Where should those hubs be located? How often does delivery need to occur? Can each library receive delivery every day of the week? GIS helps immensely in answering these questions.

Participants will get hands-on experience with mapping library data by zip code and they will also see the results of a delivery analysis.

This session is sponsored by RAILS.

Community assessment & civic data