Using Google Earth in Libraries: A Practical Guide for Librarians
| Pages | 617-618 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-03-2017-0059 |
| Date | 05 June 2017 |
| Published date | 05 June 2017 |
| Author | Philip Calvert |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
vulnerable people such as children and the elderly. Some tips to avoid identity theft
include not revealing private information online, changing passwords regularly and to
not overshare. However, the only safe way is to stay off social media totally.
Connecting with others is an important reason for social media usage. One eld that
excels in this area is the sharing of online medical information to connect those with
similar illnesses. Sites like WebMD make it safer and more effective to obtain online
medical advice. However, the prevalence of self-diagnosis is increasing when medical
advice should be sought.
Although it is unlikely that social media will get a conscience, the main benets of
using social media are to foster community, educate the public about the law and give
current and topical comments. Herring gives a thorough coverage of these issues and
some tips toward healthier social media usage.
Kay Samuels
Department of Legislative Library and Research Services,
Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Toronto, Canada
Using Google Earth in Libraries: A Practical Guide for Librarians
Edited by Eva H. Dodsworth and Andrew Nicholson
Rowman & Littleeld
Lanham, MD
2015
108 pp.
US$65.00 soft cover
ISBN 978-1-4422-5504-3
Keywords Google Earth, Libraries
Review DOI 10.1108/EL-03-2017-0059
We must all be familiar with Google Earth; who has not used it to make virtual ights over
cities and oceans, done the same with 3D and gone back in time to see how the world once
looked. Yet it will be a far fewer number of us who have used the same software as a research,
mapping and cultural exploration tool. This book explores the use of Google Earth as a
research tool in libraries. The book opens with a chapter describing Google Earth and how it
can be used, for example, by the importation of external objects, such as photos and KML
les. This chapter is necessary because many who read it (this reviewer included) will realise
they have not been using the software to its full potential. The second chapter explains how
Google Earth can be used as a portal or a discovery tool for pointing library customers to
resources, such as pathnders and online collections. The idea that it can be used as a
resource management system may not have occurred to many librarians who use Google
Earth but there are, apparently, several libraries that do this already and their projects are
described in this chapter. The next chapter is about using Google Earth for teaching in
geospatial, environment, geography, science and other courses, and it provides several
pointers to ongoing projects. Chapter four goes “under the hood” to ask what can be done
using KML coding. The authors suggest animations and dynamic placemarks as two ways
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