Introduction

Geographic Information Systems at Yale University encompasses a range of applications and services. GIS is used by several disciplines at Yale University such as Forestry and Environmental Studies, Archeaology\Anthropology, Architecture\Urban Studies, Economics, Sociology, Political Science, Religious Studies, Epidemiology and Public Health, History, and Engineering. GIS has the potential to be used by many more disciplines. Any research that contains a spatial element has a potential GIS application.

GIS is used for many purposes that range from calculating space, analyzing spatial relationships, patterns or trends, to cartography, visualization, and site management. A few examples might be finding all the census tracts within a 10 mile radius of the Yale New Haven Hospital that contain more than 100 people below the age of 18, building a 3 dimensional model of elevation showing slope, soil type and vegetation to predict landslides, or building a GIS to manage a survey of an archeological site in South Ameria.

There are a variety of service centers that provide different levels of GIS service at Yale University. The Yale University Library Map Collection GIS Service aims to provide a comprehensive GIS service that covers geospatial data searching, acquisition, data manipulation, instruction, software access, distribution, and output. Other University departments provide various levels of GIS services as well. The Statlab provides intergrated GIS services with an emphasis on instruction and analysis. The Government Documents Library has a sizeable collection of Government deposited GIS data sets. See the Services page and the Contact page for more detailed information on services offered by Yale.