----------------------------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 )