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Books: GIS – Health, Learning ArcGIS and GIS Architecture

By Vector One ⋅ March 25, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Three new books have emerged from ESRI Press. I’ve been reading through them on the morning S-Bahn ride. Here are my notes.

1) GIS Tutorial for Health by Kristen S. Kurland and Wilpen L. Gorr has been updated for ArcGIS 9.3. This update is important not only for meeting the updated ArcGIS 9.3 version, but because health is becoming a major initiative going forward. The U.S. President has declared health a priority and one can pretty much bet that GIS will figure prominently into the investments and efforts in that area going forward.

book This book comes with a 180 day trial version of ArcGIS. Instructions for installing the software are included and exercise data is available on a 2nd DVD.

I like this book. The book discusses GIS briefly, which is good, before launching the reader into data and mapping straight away. It includes a wealth of topics such as, visualizing health data, designing maps for health studies, projecting and using health and spatial data, geo-coding and analyzing health data. Each of these areas include a number of explanations and outline how-to’s for working with the data and includes examples based on breast cancer, lung cancer, uninsured populations and so on. Case studies include food-borne disease outbreaks and forming a national health chapter spatially.

This book connects real world health data to GIS in a way that helps health professionals and staff to begin working with GIS. This step is hard to overcome for some professions because they may not have GIS background knowledge or think in a spatially related way. As a result this book closes that gap, putting examples forward in a GIS environment in a clear and easy-to-understand way.

I’ll recommend that all users of GIS ought to read this book. It will describe a flipside to GIS, and help to explain how GIS is much more than a dot on a map in a digital world.

2) Getting to Know ArcGIS – This is an updated version of the popular Getting to Know ArcGIS and is oriented to the new ArcGIS 9.3 desktop software. At 592 pages, this is the book for you if you are beginning with ArcGIS software. It includes a single use ArcView, ArcEditor and ArcInfo license and exercise data on 2 separate DVD’s.

This book summarizes what a GIS is and explains spatial data. It walks user’s through a step-by-step approach for using ArcGIS software. It contains a comprehensive set of graphics that accompany the exercises.

The key value to this book I think is related to its comprehensive content. But also due to the fact that if you are like me, you find it difficult to run on-screen tutorials to learn a software while actually using the software. This might be easier for those with numerous monitors or desktop space, but many folks aren’t so lucky. Using this book, one can leaf through the details in hardcopy and easily refer to them while sitting before a computer. The added benefit is that you can learn without a computer too – which I did riding around Berlin this week.

If you are are beginning with ArcGIS then this book should be a consideration for helping to learn.

3) Building System Architecture Design Strategies for Managers - Dave Peters is the author of this new book, which I found fascinating. Jack Dangermond writes a thought provoking and interesting Foreward in this book which evolved through previous work with Roger Tomlinson.

Peters is focused upon the hardware aspects of developing solutions based on GIS. The logic behind this is simple, given one can design whatever they wish, but it must be operable – efficiently – on some kind of hardware system.

You can hear lots of people talking about architecture and GIS programming online, but it can be daunting and difficult to understand. This book explains what system architecture for GIS is and why it is important. If you ever wondered about all those ‘Arc’ product software and how they come together, Peters explains it in this book. You will learn about the connections, the philosophy, technology issues and trends along with communication strategies and the ArcGIS family and line of products. Security, performance and efficiency are also included.

This is the stuff you need to know about if you are running not only a small network connecting to a web service, but a multi-national energy company or transportation network with 10,000 employee’s.

I’ll recommend that all users of GIS ought to read this book. It will describe a flipside to GIS, and help to explain how GIS is much more than a dot on a map in a digital world.