The GIS Project I chose to review was Beyond Steel :An Archive of Lehigh Valley Industry and Culture. This GIS documents the mid nineteenth-century boom through late twentieth-century decline of Lehigh Valley. The project looks into major industries like Bethlehem Steel, local churches, schools, government buildings and independent businesses.
The map includes 1900-1901, 1900-1902 Bethlehem Steel employee lists, a database of streets and selected information from the 1900 Census report. This represents the Bethlehem population as well as a good concept of the workers in the steel industry in Lehigh.
The website categorizes the maps information into sections including, business & technology, society & culture, with sub categories including iron & steel, coal & canals, railroads, cements and factories. This makes it easy to recognize points on the mapping system and easily find where those points are explained in the website in detail.
The mapping system was difficult to find on the website, in my opinion I believe it should be more of a focal point in the website, which in this case the information of the GIS is the front page. For improvement, I would move the map to the central point of the website, and have the information slides pop up while clicking on the different points on the map. Once on the map, it is easy to navigate to different points on the map, and since the size of the map is not very big considering it is only mapping Lehigh Valley, I think good detail was involved when creating the map.
HIST2P26 