----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Posted to GOVDOC-L, this may be of interest to libraries using U.S.
government CD-ROM products and LandView II.
John Stevenson
University of Delaware Library
[log in to unmask]
---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1997 09:47:24 -0600
>From: "Floyd J. Csir" <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Discussion of Government Document Issues <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Summary: Landview II for Dummies
Hi everyone,
Thanks for all who responded to my post in regard to Landview II and how to
explain its usefulness to reference librarians.
There are at least 3 LVII help/tutorial sources on the Web:
http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/lv2_doc.html
http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/lv2tutor.html
http://cdserver.er.usgs.gov/folio.pgi/landview.nfo/query=[jump!3A!27landview
ii+documentation!27]/doc/{@208}?
Thankfully, Paul T. Manka from the U.S. Bureau of the Census emailed an
explanation of LVII including the context from which it was created and
acknowledging some of the confusion librarians have experienced. Also, he
says they are currently beta-testing LVIII for Windows and Mac platforms.
Hopefully, LVIII will be an improvement. I've included his response below
as well as advice given by longtime-LVII searcher Lauris Olson from the
University of Pennsylvania. ([log in to unmask])
Paul T. Manka:
LandView II is a PC DOS based mapping program which is based upon the
Bureau's 1992 TIGER\Line files which was developed collaboratively with the
EPA on a very limited budget. The chief purpose of the program is provide
users with maps showing political and Census statistical areas as well as
EPA pollution related sites. As you probably aware many of the familiar
printed maps were discontinued for the 1990 Census and are only available
as electrostatic plots which are reproduced on a cost-reimbursable basis by
our Customer Services Branch. In short, it was designed as a public domain
mapping program to help the public learn about environmental hazards in the
community. While it lacks the power of a true commercial GIS system, we
have found this product useful in responding to the types of questions
below.
-- I need to get the census tract and block group number for my house so I
can look up the 1990 Census data.
-- I am working on a project involving environmental justice. Do you have
any EPA information on hazardous waste sites.
--What is the population within a 3 mile radius from our fire station.
Your note does not mention whether you had visited our TIGER page where we
provide both a fuller description of the product as well as very basic
tutorial in how to use this product. I suggest that you visit the following
URL http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/lv2tutor.html and download the
tutorial. In addition, you may wish to look at the lv2.doc file contained
in the \lv2 directory on the CD-ROM which is an ASCII file containing the
information contained in the help screens.
We recognize that the program needs more explanatory materials. Luckily, we
are beta testing LandView III which is developed for both the Windows and
the MacIntosh platforms and will be based on TIGER\Line 1995 and updated
EPA database files. In addition to an expanded help section using standard
Windows hypertext, EPA has developed a tutorial that will help guide users
through the basic functions of the program. We hope to have the new product
available to users later this year.
We have received a number of calls from reference librarians who are not
only confused about LandView II but its relationship to other Geography
division products such as TIGER\Line files. I am planning to contact
several librarians who have expertise in GIS matters to work with me in
posting messages clarifying these issues to the govdoc-l listsv.
Thank you for interest in LandView. Let me know, if I can be of further
assistance
Paul T. Manka
Products and Services Staff - Geography Division
U.S. Bureau of the Census
Washington, D.C. 20233
(301) 457-1128
Lauris Olson:
LandView II is very useful for a number of things:
(1) It provides block-group level identification information for 1990
Census geography. As the GPO, Census Bureau, and State Data Center
haven't been too forthcoming with nationwide census-tract or other
decennial census maps, Landview II is a handy alternative -- at least for
the regions your CD-ROM covers: it allows the user to depict block-group
or census-tract coverage; it also allows the user to point at a street
and learn the appropriate geographic codes (as well as address ranges for
both sides of the street a la DeLorme Street Atlas CD-ROM).
(2) It allows one to display a small subset of "100%", STF 1A, or short-form
1990 Census population data for pre-defined geographic areas, like
counties or census tracts, or block groups. It has a neat-o interface
to the CD-ROM version of the basic sample data component CD-ROM from the
1990 Census [STF 3A]; however, the interface needs a little work,
especially if you've installed LandView data sets on your hard drive.
(3) It allows one to identify geographic units within user-established
boxes or radii, and provides a link from that ID list to the STF 1A data
provided for census-based geographic units.
(4) LandView II's view function allows one to use dBASE-like language to
identify graphically geographic units based upon particular
characteristics. I've used this feature, for instance, to produce maps
showing the extent of Philadelphia neighborhoods based upon block-groups:
http://www.library.upenn.edu/census/philnbrhds/philnbrhds.html
and its linked maps.
(5) LandView II allows users both to add data items to already existing
dBASE-format attribute files (so that I could, for instance, add
neighborhood names to the STF 1A data file) and to add new dBASE-format
attribute files.
The former is useful: the EPA included a snapshot of hazardous waste
site data; you could use more recent releases of Toxic Release Inventory
(TRI) or ATSDR's HAZDAT database to add more recent sites.
For the latter, the heuristic is: if you know the latitude and
longitude of a feature, it can be shown in LandView II. Thus I produced
a series of maps depicting Philadelphia public school clusters, for
which I drew an icon using LandView II's view function, and which
queried a file of public schools plotted by latitude and longitude.
[You may ask where the latitude/longitude data came from?
Three sources -- (1) US Geological Survey's GNIS database on CD-ROM
includes that information for every feature shown on topographical maps,
so I could have added most Philadelphia public buildings, cultural
institutions, and hospitals, too, (2) the 1990 Census STF 1B (Block
Extract) CD-ROM provides latitude/longitude centerpoint data for every
block in the country -- if you know the block number, then you merely use
dBASE to transfer the location data from one file to the other (I
exaggerate: nobody knows block numbers unless they own the 1990 Census
block maps -- approx $200 per county -- or have something more powerful
than LandView II!), or (3) cheat and use an (unreliable)
privately-published street atlas.]
http://www.library.upenn.edu/census/philschl/psdstraw.html
http://www.library.upenn.edu/census/philschl/psdwphil.html
Now that I've got these schools "defined", LandView II can be used to get
geographic and demographic information about all block groups or census
tracts within a box or radius centered on one school.
I sing the praises of LandView II, but that's because my bruises won
through ardent courtship have faded. It is the world's pain in the ass to
install: most efficient use requires that you pick the county you want to
install, and then install EVERYTHING for that county, and even things you
didn't know you wanted! Don't run off the CD-ROM. And even when you've
got it installed, and have discovered the two or three nifty little 30-
megabyte directories like c:\42\101 and c:\philadel.pa the installation
procedure creates, it still won't work! And wouldn't you know, I've run
out of space here!
Fermaatly yours, Lauris Olson
PS. You're probably better off asking the local planning commission or
planning department on campus to convert the TIGER/Line file coverages
for the counties you want and for the specific geographies you want
covered (like ZIPs, Census tracts, county subdivisions) into a format
suitable for using the freeware ArcVIEW distributed via WWW by ESRI (vide
http://www.esri.com): it's much easier to use,streets and census
geographic boundaries will align properly (LandView II uses,
inexplicably, census tract geography that was "unsmoothed", straight
lines from one corner to the next corner, so that streets and their
related census tract boundaries aren't always congruent: compare the
county and census tract boundaries southwest of Harrington Elementary
School and Shaw Middle School on the school map:
http://www.library.upenn.edu/census/philschl/psdwphil.html )