add some wow to your publications listing with google maps © bruce blair nrcan library natural...

Add some wow to your publications listing with Google Maps©

Bruce Blair

NRCan Library

Natural Resources Canada

Geoscience Information Society 2009

Using Google maps

We already use Google maps

- to locate shops and addresses

- to plan how to get to places

- why not use it with our publication listings …

school

soccer

New Releases RSS feed

NRCan Library maintains GEOSCAN, the search engine for Geological Survey of Canada publications metadata

An RSS feed of the publications released in the past 31 days keeps clients up to date

New Releases RSS Feed

RSS feeds are effective at keeping your clients up to date

… but they can be a little boooorrrrrrriiiiiiinnnnnng!

Adding the “wow”

We linked our RSS feed to Google maps

- shows where the publications occur

- uses the latitude/longitude metadata in our database

- the geospatial display provides your clients with an alternative discovery method

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Stepping back a bit

What is an RSS feed?

How do you make it work with Google Maps ?

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RSS and XML

• You don't need to be an RSS guru

• RSS may be database-driven, or created manually in Notepad

• An RSS feed is an XML file where the data elements are identified with specific tags

Making an RSS feed

RSS feed has 4 sections

Page title

RSS header

RSS footer

Item entry

Item entry

Making an RSS feed

RSS header Page title Item entry RSS footer

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>

<rss version="2.0">

Making an RSS feedRSS header Page title Item entry RSS footer

<channel>

<title>Your RSS feed title</title>

<description>A few more details ... </description>

Making an RSS feed

RSS header Page title Item entry RSS footer

<channel>

<title>ESS New Releases</title>

<description> New releases from the Earth Sciences Sector, Natural Resources Canada. </description>

Making an RSS feedRSS header Page title Item entry RSS footer

<item><title> The title of the item </title><description>A few words to describe your item </description><link>The URL of the item</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Unique ID</guid><pubDate>YYYY MM DD HH:MM:SS EDT</pubDate>

</item>

Making an RSS feed

RSS header Page title Item entry RSS footer

<item><title>Iron formation in Canada, genesis and geochemistry </title><description> A few words to describe your item </description><link>The URL of the item</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Unique ID </guid><pubDate>YYYY MM DD HH:MM:SS EDT</pubDate>

</item>

Making an RSS feedRSS header Page title Item entry RSS footer

<item><title>Iron formation in Canada, genesis and geochemistry </title><description>Gross, G A; Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 5987, 2009 </description><link> The URL of the item </link><guid isPermaLink="false">Unique ID </guid><pubDate>YYYY MM DD HH:MM:SS EDT</pubDate>

</item>

Making an RSS feed

RSS header Page title Item entry RSS footer

<item><title>Iron formation in Canada, genesis and geochemistry </title><description>Gross, G A; Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 5987, 2009 </description><link>http://geoscan.ess.nrcan.gc.ca/…/?id=123456</link><guid isPermaLink="false"> Unique ID </guid><pubDate>YYYY MM DD HH:MM:SS EDT</pubDate>

</item>

Making an RSS feed

RSS header Page title Item entry RSS footer

<item><title>Iron formation in Canada, genesis and geochemistry </title><description>Gross, G A; Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 5987, 2009 </description><link>http://geoscan.ess.nrcan.gc.ca/…/?id=123456 </link><guid isPermaLink="false">123456</guid><pubDate> YYYY MM DD HH:MM:SS EDT </pubDate>

</item>

Making an RSS feed

RSS header Page title Item entry RSS footer

<item><title>Iron formation in Canada, genesis and geochemistry </title><description>Gross, G A; Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 5987, 2009 </description><link>http://geoscan.ess.nrcan.gc.ca/…/?id=123456 </link><guid isPermaLink="false">123456</guid><pubDate>2009 08 12 00:00:00 EDT</pubDate>

</item>

Making an RSS feed

RSS header Page title Item entry RSS footer

</channel>

</rss>

… put the file on your web server and you have an RSS feed!

ESS New Releases RSS feed

So we now have an RSS feed for ESS New Releases.

Auto-notifications for subscribers

Very nice …

… and now for the

W O W

Displaying with Google Maps

We added latitude and longitude data to our RSS with GeoRSS encoding to allow Google Maps to display our publications

Displaying with Google Maps

We added latitude and longitude data to our RSS with GeoRSS encoding to allow Google Maps to display our publications

Adding GeoRSS

There are only two elements to add …

- in the RSS Header,

- add an XML namespace to the <rss> tag

<rss version="2.0" xmlns:georss="http://www.georss.org/georss">

- in each Item Entry,

- add the lat/long values in a <georss> tag

<georss:polygon> 63.2500 -137.5000 63.2500 -138.5500 63.5000 -138.0000 63.5000 -137.5000 63.2500 -137.5000

</georss:polygon>

<georss> tagThe <georss> tag uses lat/long data to represent

a point

<georss:point> 45.256 -71.92</georss:point>

<georss> tagThe <georss> tag uses lat/long data to represent

a point

a line

<georss:line>45.32 -75.67 45.9 -97.23 45.52 -122.68</georss:line>

<georss> tagThe <georss> tag uses lat/long data to represent

a point

a line

a box

<georss:box>46.75 -81 47 -80.5</georss:box>

<georss> tagThe <georss> tag uses lat/long data to represent

a point

a line

a box

a polygon

<georss:polygon>50.25 -96 50.25 -97 51.50 -97.50 53.25 -99.50 54 -99.25 54.75 -98 50.25 96</georss:polygon>

In closingFeed your RSS with Lats & Longs Add some wow …

Questions / comments?

GEOSCAN:

http://geoscan.ess.nrcan.gc.ca/site.php?id=geoscan_e

ESS New Releases RSS:

http://geoscan.ess.nrcan.gc.ca/rss/newpub_e.rss

Bruce.Blair@NRCan.gc.ca