Vermont GIS Blog

In July 2009, I was browsing through the ESRI Online Library (http://training.esri.com/campus/library), when I came across the following two documents

“Vermont’s geographic information system: Development to implementation”, authored by David Healy, dated 1989, and
“Vermont’s GIS, Four Years Later Lessons Learned”, authored by David J. Healy, dated 1992.

When I saw those two titles, I realized that in July 2009, we were at the 20 year anniversary point of GIS in Vermont, and thought that a review of the history of GIS in Vermont would be appropriate.

I started to try to find and gather documents from the early years and soon discovered that the use of GIS in Vermont had started even earlier. In the early 1980’s, the University of Vermont (UVM) was probably the first institution to start to implement a systematic and comprehensive approach to creating and building statewide GIS data layers.

But, UVM was not the only institution in the early 1980’s that was grasping the concept of using computers to map geographic data. A surprising article is one titled, “Using Interactive Computer Mapping to Teach Cartographic Concepts at Middlebury College”, written by Robert R. Churchill and Phillip Frankland, published in 1981.

I am starting to catalog and post the items I am coming across as part of my research on the history of GIS in Vermont. I hope you find these items as interesting as I do.

If you have any items you would like to submit for consideration for addition to the catalog, please let me know.