Seven New Books from Esri Press

Esri Press is expanding its list of GIS titles with seven new books.

Getting to Know ArcGIS Desktop: Basics of ArcView, ArcEditor, and ArcInfo (8.1)

ArcGIS is the latest generation of GIS software from Esri that introduces a whole new way of working with geographic information. Designed as a self-study workbook or textbook for a semester-length class, Getting to Know ArcGIS Desktop: Basics of ArcView, ArcEditor, and ArcInfo (8.1) applies the same readability and teaching style as its predecessor, the best-selling Getting to Know ArcView GIS. Step-by-step exercises-no prior experience with GIS software is assumed-introduce students to basic skills from map making and spatial analysis to database creation and management. Use of conventional symbology and classification schemes, techniques of query and overlay analysis, methods of map projection, geocoding, and map layout are all covered in clear detail. Students will learn to use ArcMap, ArcCatalog, and ArcToolbox—applications common to all three ArcGIS products—to solve real-world problems with the carefully constructed exercises and nontechnical language that make self-teaching an excellent alternative to the classroom. The book, written by Esri education specialists, includes a 180-day trial version of ArcView 8.1 as well as all the geographic data required to complete the exercises.

The Medium Is the Map: Discovering Niches of Opportunity in Geospatial Services

Christian Harder and Phil Odham go Marshall McLuhan's classic The Medium is the Message one better in The Medium Is the Map: Discovering Niches of Opportunity in Geospatial Services. GIS and the Internet are a natural mix. The Net is a transforming delivery vehicle for GIS, or geospatial, services. From collaborative spatial data catalogs like GeographyNetwork.com to more customized vertical application-specific implementations developed by value-added resellers, emerging niches of opportunity are soon to transform into major market segments. The Medium Is the Map is the first overview of the astonishing range of potential Business and consumer services that are possible with GIS-a timely heads-up to any practitioner in the geospatial field as well as any serious user or student of GIS. Based on a survey of practitioners across the disciplines and industries of the GIS market, this book maps the emerging landscape created by the convergence of broadband Web access and geographic application services. The emphasis is on markets and opportunity, not technology; therefore this book should prove fascinating reading for anyone with a basic interest in GIS.

Planning Support Systems: Integrating GIS, Models, and Visualization Tools

Planning Support Systems: Integrating GIS, Models, and Visualization Tools offers views of new possibilities in land use planning from acknowledged experts in the field. Richard Brail of Rutgers University's Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, and Richard Klosterman of the University of Akron, have assembled papers from experts around the world working to expand understanding and applicability of a dozen of the most important aspects of computer-aided planning. Urban, regional, and community planners; commercial developers; transportation system designers and engineers-land use professionals from every walk, sector, and level of American public life-are turning increasingly from traditional modes of planning to computers that provide extraordinarily detailed visualizations, animated and manipulable three-dimensional models, and the vast databases and supermaps of geographic information systems. This integration of concerns and technologies has also had the effect of integrating parties at the planning and negotiating table: planners no longer plan for the people in their communities, they plan with them. As planning support systems software increases its capacity for detail, it becomes easier and faster to use as well.

Open Access: GIS in e-Government

Hard on the heels of his GIS in Public Policy: Using Geographic Information Systems for More Effective Government (Esri Press, 2000), comes R.W. Greene's Open Access: GIS in e-Government, a collection of case studies examining the ways local, state, federal, and regional government agencies are making themselves available online. By delivering services over the Web, the conditions that usually prevail between server and served, the governed and the governing, can be dramatically improved. The long waiting line may become a thing of the past, along with bloated budgets and the legendary inefficiency of bureaucracies. Electronic payment of taxes, a streamlined application process for permits, increased inclusiveness of community members in community planning, enhanced 911 capability-these are just a few of the fronts on which the commonwealth and GIS are meeting. Progressive officials and organizations are predicting that IMS-based interactive map services are going to open doors at city hall that have traditionally remained closed, consequently making government itself a more open and democratic activity.

GIS in Telecommunications

Competition in the telecommunications industry has reached new levels of intensity. Corporate structures come and go, technological advances are made seemingly every other day, and everybody is scrambling for an edge. One result of this perpetual motion has been an increase in innovative applications of GIS. Lisa Godin, in GIS in Telecommunications, walks us through a number of these innovations at places such as Telcordia, Qwest, SignalSoft, and T-Mobil where some of the industry's most daunting tasks have been simplified including integrating market analysis data with mapping systems; network design/operations management; tracking "outside plant" engineering procedures; and converging demographics, "trouble tickets," call history, and revenues. Customer services are being enhanced in other ways, as well, with interactive maps served over the Internet, "e-yellow pages," people-finder, and relocation services.

Disaster Response: GIS in Public Safety

Perhaps nowhere can there be found a more striking and beneficial use of GIS than in matters of public safety. Disaster Response: GIS in Public Safety by Gary Amdahl, takes the reader from a mudslide in a small mountain village; to fire stations where slender budgets meet raised expectations; and to workshops where community members learn how to become "fire wise" and take fire prevention into their own hands. Other case studies show vividly how disasters and emergency situations no longer have to be simply reacted to-they can be studied, planned and prepared for, and responded to more quickly and effectively. Mother Nature will continue to do as she pleases, but more lives can be saved and less property damaged or lost when GIS is part of the social safety net.

Mapping Census 2000: The Geography of U.S. Diversity

From crack cartographers Cynthia Brewer and Trudy Suchan at the U.S. Census Bureau comes Mapping Census 2000: The Geography of U.S. Diversity, an atlas of the Census Bureau's redistricting data for 2000. Seventy-eight county-level national maps are laid out on facing pages, showing population distribution in 2000 and population changes from 1990 to 2000. Bivariate (created according to more than one variable), multirace, and diversity mappings of the country are included as well, along with the basic 2000 density map and coverage of standard population topics—a unique and revealing snapshot of America at the start of the millennium.

To find out more about Esri Press, please visit www.esri.com/esripress or call 1-800-447-9778. You can also purchase Esri Press books online at store.esri.com.

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