For the Love of Maps

Not many people can truly say that their childhood interest in video games led them to their future career. Yet for Kevin Dyke, the head of the Maps and Spatial Data department in the library, that’s exactly what happened.

This week, I sat down with Kevin, and we discussed how he got started in mapping, some of his work at the Edmon Low Library and his ideas for the future of Maps and Spatial Data.

“When I was a kid playing video games, I fell in love with the interactive maps that you would use playing different games,” Kevin said. “That was my first real foray into loving maps.”

 From there, his passion only continued to grow. After studying history at Truman State University, he got his master’s in geography with an emphasis in geographic information science at the University of Minnesota. Eventually, Kevin and his wife both found jobs at OSU and moved to Stillwater.

Shortly after he began working at OSU in August 2016, he hosted his first Mapping 101 workshop. Mapping 101 has become widely popular since the first workshop. The students dive into the basics of geographic information systems (GIS) and different types of maps. In the future, Kevin hopes to expand his workshop offerings to other topics, like data visualization and coding languages, such as HTML, JavaScript and CSS.

“I want things that people will enjoy,” Kevin said. “I think these topics would be well received. For anyone in academia, there’s always uses for those sorts of skills.”

We also discussed the advancements he’s made in Maps and Spatial Data thanks to the generous donations of the McCasland Foundation. The gifts of the foundation have allowed Kevin and his team to digitize almost 2,000 maps. The McCasland Digital Maps Collection alone boasts nearly 40,000 page views.

“It’s been a long, fruitful relationship with the McCasland Foundation,” Kevin said.

And the digital maps aren’t just for OSU faculty, staff and students. The public can access the maps too. In fact, Kevin recalls chatting with people from as far as California who want to use the maps in their publications. The maps are part of the Congressional Serial Set, so they are public domain.

“When we get requests for a map, we provide people an archival quality digital copy at no cost,” Kevin said. “As a land grant institution, we’re here to serve the public.”

He is also in the process of perfecting a software he developed that allows users to select an area of land and find historic maps of that area. For example, if you wanted to see maps of the OSU campus from 1950, you could select the current campus area and the software would pull the maps from the digital collection that most closely resemble that space – “all within 150 milliseconds,” Kevin said.

If you ever need a copy of a map or simply have questions about something you’ve seen online in the digital collections, do not hesitate to reach out to Kevin! After speaking with him, it was very clear to me that he is extremely passionate about maps and helping other people love and understand them too. He’s knowledgeable, excited and more than willing to help anyone with their research.

The basement, where Maps and Spatial Data is located, is currently under construction. But you can reach Kevin through email or by setting up an appointment with him.

405-744-9731
Lib-map@okstate.edu

Posted by Jenny Berry, electronic communications intern

The Archives: A Summary

October is American Archives Month, a time dedicated to showcasing archived collections of valuable historical documents around the country. While researching for American Archives Month, I quickly realized how unaware I was of the usefulness and thoroughness of OSU's archives. That being said, I figured I was not the only person on campus who could benefit from a quick review of the archival units at Oklahoma State.

Government Documents:

This department is, you guessed it, a depository of government documents! Various materials including agricultural statistics and presidential economic reports can be found in Government Documents. The department also contains state, national and international government publications.

Government Documents is a useful resource for any Oklahoma State student or faculty member looking to delve deeper into the history of the world's governments. In addition to documenting the past, the Government Documents department sheds light on current government events on the Gov Docs blog. As a student, I enjoy the department's blogposts because they simplify current government activities and relate them back to past archived material. The blog is a great way to engage readers. In fact, I registered to vote shortly after reading the National Voter Registration Day post this past September!

Maps & Spatial Data:

With over 150,000 sheet maps, 80,000 aerial photographs and hundred of atlases, Maps & Spatial Data is a vast resource for all things maps. The majority of the collected maps focus on Oklahoma, but there are also maps of neighboring states, the nation and the world as a whole.

Maps & Spatial Data also offers workshops that teach people how to make, manipulate and understand maps. The department not only houses thousands of tangible maps, but is also currently digitizing many documents in order to make them more accessible through online research. Head to the basement of Edmon Low to visit the department and expand your knowledge of maps.

Oklahoma Oral History Research Program:

Otherwise known as OOHRP, the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program documents history through oral interviews. By interviewing people who were a part of past historical events, OOHRP is able to fill the gaps of history that are often forgotten in written testimonies.

The program was founded in 2007 and since then has made history accessible to students and faculty of Oklahoma State through interviews. OOHRP is an innovative tool that teaches people about the value of interview-based research, something that can be easier to absorb compared to written materials. OOHRP also has a twitter account and podcast that makes the oral research as readily available as possible.

The Archives:

The Archives is a vast collection of historical documents that detail the history of the university, the state and the nation. The Archives contains rare manuscripts, photographs and more that are excellent research materials for Oklahoma State students and faculty.

The Archives aims to make history both accessible and user-friendly for all members of the OSU family. Any historical document related to the management, operations and mission of OSU can be found in The Archives. You can access archived documents in The Archives office on the second floor of Edmon Low, as well as on the departmental page of the Library website.

If you're anything like me, you've probably realized that the archived material at OSU is larger you initially thought. It blew me way to discover the various archive departments and the resources that each branch offers. From historical maps to interviews with past Pistol Petes, Oklahoma State University Libraries provides the Cowboy community with a look into the past.


Posted by Tatum Wallace, Electronic Communications Intern for OSU Library Communications

Maps and Spatial Data Services Q&A

Kevin Dyke is one of the newest members of the OSU Library faculty. Originally a history major with geography and English minors, Mr. Dyke moved to the University of Minnesota to earn a graduate degree in geography. While there, his knowledge of computer programming led him to a job in UM’s map library. Now, as head of Maps and Spatial Data Services, Mr. Dyke is our go-to guy for learning all about what goes on down in the Edmon Low basement.

We recently spoke with him to find out a little more about MSDS and how it can be integrated into our library of the future.

What are your duties?

It has been an interesting transition coming from my last job because I basically took on the duties of my previous boss and coworker in a lot of ways. I’m the subject liaison for the geography department, and I manage our paper map collection, which is something that is very new to me. I’m learning more about the job part and also learning more about the collection. I have always known that map collections are quite different from a book collection, but now, I’m actually learning the details of just how unusual they are. I had an appreciation for them, but my work was entirely digital.

What can you tell us about the maps collection?

The main strengths of our collection are Oklahoma and Indian Territory, going back to the earliest days of when they came to be. We even have several maps from before the land became known as such. That is what comprises the digital maps collection, which is roughly 9,000 maps. I’ll go ahead and claim that we have the strongest collection of Oklahoma maps in the state. That is the biggest focus, but being a depository library, there is also the Federal Depository Library Program. FDLP is how people used to access governmental materials before the internet came around, so thousands of maps in our collection are a result of that program. It includes maps from the United States Geological Survey, the CIA and a number of other federal agencies. The Bureau of Land Management has also produced many maps that we’ve received over the years. So the lion share of our collection is maps produced by the federal government.

What exactly is spatial data?

I take a very broad view of what constitutes spatial data, and I like to include paper maps in that definition. Spatial data is anything that you could construe as a source of information that has a spatial component; basically, it refers to somewhere on the earth. So, if you have a spreadsheet of addresses of elementary schools in Payne County Oklahoma, that is something you could map, and those addresses are something you could consider spatial data.

What is the most common question you get from visitors?

I would say, the most common request we get is for historical aerial photographs, and those are exactly what they sound like. It is when the state or federal government would pay a company to fly across a county with a camera on the bottom of the plane snapping pictures. Then they take those pictures and distort them, so it seems like you’re starting straight down at the ground, and that can be used as a map. Otherwise, you have angles, and you won’t be able to measure distances. It’s not just like snapping a photo of the ground and saying “that’s an aerial photograph.” There is a whole wild world to it.

The requests are mainly for the contrast of an area. They know what it looks like now, but they are wanting to see what it looked like back in the ‘60s or whenever. It’s a lot of businesses and a lot of people dealing with the landscape of an area.

Right now, the Corporation Commission of Oklahoma is in the middle of a project where they are collecting all the aerial photographs from the OSU Library, the University of Oklahoma, the Geological Survey and the Oklahoma Department of Libraries. The idea is that they will all be available at one spot. The main interest of the Corporation Commission is to monitor historical hazards. For example, they will be able to see an oil well north of Oklahoma City in 1935 and if there was a spill, so it could help make a link to the past. That is the driver of their interest in the project; ideally, the rest of us would also benefit from it.

How can classic paper maps stay relevant?

Broadly speaking, there is a lot of people who go hiking or work in areas that don’t have cell reception or GPS signal. Just in the western part of the country, there are big stretches of land where you are probably not going to get great signal. Those people still rely on paper maps, so there is still a strong market for those practical, weatherproof, foldable maps.

The other aspect is that they are a source of historical information, like any archive where researchers go and examine the firsthand writings of someone who lived in another time. Hand-in-hand with that is the map the people drew during their lifetime and how the map depicts the land. That level of use is not going to go away, and it is only going to become greater in decades to come because access to and creation of paper maps is dying. There is no question that it is not at the level it once was. At one time, a library like this would be receiving materials from the federal government on a weekly basis; that is just not the case anymore.

Is there anything that OSU Library can be doing better to stay with the digital times?

My job is going to be not only to take care of the collection but also to bring it into the 21st century and to emphasize the services aspect of our new name. I’m offering a workshop on how to make maps on the internet. In the future, I’m hoping to create a suite of workshops that would lead people through the different aspects of working with spatial data, paper maps and data visualization. Mapping is one form of data visualization, but there are many other ways to integrate it into our offerings. We can interact with our collection but also teach what people can do away from our collection and how to include our collection into an interactive map. That is what I’m really hoping to make happen here.

Do you think there is an opportunity to collaborate with our McCasland Foundation Data Visualization Studio?

A big problem with having digital map collections is that you only have a screen so big, and most of our maps are the size of tables. When you’re trying to look at the whole thing on a computer screen, the experience is just not the same. Having the full size makes things easier, and that is where having those huge tables and giant screens come in. You can actually display all of our maps in full size on that equipment and swipe through them. Those sorts of possibilities will certainly help the integration of spatial data into the new vision for the library.  

As Mr. Dykes has explained, Maps and Spatial Data Services can be an incredible resource for visitors and a useful tool in creating a library of the future. Our collection has the potential to have easier, widespread access through the Corporation Commission of Oklahoma. There are also opportunities for collaboration with data visualization that could revolutionize the way students and faculty are able to interact with our maps collection, spatial data and visual software.

What kind of workshop would you like to see from Maps and Spatial Data Services? Comment below.

Post by Jennifer Barnett, E-Communications Intern for OSU Library Communications