Dr. Phyllis C. Self’s Blog

Check out this interview from the Farm Bureau with Linda Zellmer on Tuesday, November 23.
http://www.farmweeknow.com/

Western Illinois University will be hosting Geographical Information Systems (GIS) Day activities November 18, 2009 from 1:00 to 4:00 PM in the Garden Lounge of Malpass Library. GIS Day is an international event that is held to inform people about geographic information system (GIS) technology and the important contributions it makes in the fields of science, technology, information, and the humanities. WIU’s GIS Day activities will provide the WIU community and the general public an opportunity for those interested in learning about GIS to see its applications in action.
WIU students, faculty and staff and the general public are invited to attend. For more information contact Linda Zellmer, LR-Zellmer@wiu.edu, 309-298-2723 or Chad Sperry CE-Sperry@wiu.edu, 309-298-2562.

Politics & Government – GIS can be used to map political results

Anthropology-GIS can be used to map digs, movements of people and cultures and many many activities of anthropologists.  GIS can be used to map people’s movement or migration patterns. For example, the attached map shows the ancestry of people who were living in Illinois during the 2000 Census (and the relative number of people in each group).

Education – GIS can be used to map data such as test scores to compare it with information on income, poverty and educational attainment of parents

Biology – GIS can be used to map the distribution of animals and plants & identify potential habitats (or threatened habitats)

Broadcasting & Journalism – GIS is used to map a lot of different issues. Where do you think the maps on CNN and in the newspapers come from?

Business & Marketing – GIS can be used to map business related data, such as income and education, to help identify locations for businesses

Chemistry – GIS can be used to map the distribution of pollutants

Construction Management – GIS can be used to identify sites that are located in areas with poor soils or floodplains

Dietetics – GIS can be used to map obesity rates

English – GIS can be used to map travels described in books (or the travels of authors!)

Health Sciences – GIS can be used to map health issues, such as percent of people without health insurance, obesity or disease

History – GIS can be used to map migration (immigration) and population change over time.

Hotel & Restaurant Management – GIS can be used to identify potential locations for hotels and restaurants

Law Enforcement & Justice Administration – GIS can be used to map crime rates

Physics (or at least astronomy) – GIS is used to map information about planets (such as planetary geology)

Public Administration/Public Policy – GIS can be used to make a wide variety of decisions related to government services and identify locations with populations at risk (such as poor people living near a toxic release site)

Recreation, Park & Tourism Administration – GIS can be used to identify impacted sites in parks and potential locations for new parks

Social Work & Sociology – GIS can be used to identify areas with at risk populations (low income, education, poor access to services)

Linda Zellmer, Government Information and Data Services Librarian at Western Illinois University, has used data from the 2007 Census of Agriculture and a geographic information system to develop a set of maps showing where the foods consumed at the traditional Thanksgiving dinner, such as turkey, cranberries, squash, and green beans, are grown. A comprehensive poster including all of the maps shows where all of the Thanksgiving foods are grown in the United States. The maps and posters based on data from the 1997, 2002 and 2007 Census of Agriculture are available on her web site at:

http://faculty.wiu.edu/LR-Zellmer/thanksgiving.html.

The comprehensive poster titled “Where does Thanksgiving Dinner Grow?” is available at:

http://faculty.wiu.edu/LR-Zellmer/thanksgiving/2007/Turkey07Poster.pdf

The poster, and other information and demonstrations about geographic information systems (GIS), will be on display at the Western Illinois University’s GIS Day, which will be held in November 18, 2009 from 1:00 to 4:00 PM in the Garden Lounge of Malpass Library. For more information about her research, about GIS, or about government and legal information, please contact Linda Zellmer at LR-Zellmer@wiu.edu or 309-298-2723.

TALK ABOUT KOREAN-AMERICAN MARRIAGES BOOK AND PUBLISHING PERSONAL STORIES NOV. 12 AT MALPASS

Retired Western Illinois University broadcasting department instructor Gloria Hurh will present “Pleasures and Pains of Publishing Personal Stories” from 3-5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 12 in the Leslie F. Malpass Library’s Garden Lounge (second floor).

Hurh, who is the editor of the newly published book, “We Married Koreans: Personal Stories of American Women with Korean Husbands,” will discuss the rewards and difficulties she experienced during the five years she collected, wrote, edited and finally published the book. When she began her book project, Hurh had no idea how much would be involved to bring it to completion.

According to Hurh, the book highlights the experiences of 12 American women and their marriages to Korean husbands.

“These marriage stories provide readers with an up-close, multicultural perspective on Korean-American marriages that occurred in the 1960s, a time when many states in the U.S. still had anti-miscegenation laws in place,” said Hurh.

“The women tell their stories in their own words and describe how they met their husbands, how their relationships developed and the reactions of family and friends,” Hurh explained. “Included in the book are the challenges the couples faced in blending Korean and American cultures, as well as some of the experiences of their mixed race children.

Hurh also noted that, in her view, one of the book’s major strengths is the variety of experiences presented, which reflect a wide range of circumstances.

“For example, the stories include a Jewish-Korean couple, a wife whose husband was imprisoned in Korea, a family that failed to adjust to living in Korea, a family that lived for 12 years in Brazil; and a wife who unfortunately had to bury her Korean husband,” Hurh said.

For more information about the presentation or the book, contact Hurh at (309) 833-1146 or at GA-Hurh@wiu.edu. “We Married Koreans: Personal Stories of American Women with Korean Husbands” is available through Llumina Press (www.llumina.com) , Amazon (www.amazon.com), and New Copperfields Bookstore in Macomb.