Geospatial data and software support from the Harvard Map Collection

The Harvard Map Collection maintains a series of guides and tutorials geared towards helping you with your GIS projects. These guides have been created based on Harvard community needs. Each one was written to respond to real questions from other Harvard researchers.

At the Map Collection, we advise on all GIS data and software. We do, however, write our guides for use with the free, open-source desktop tool QGIS. QGIS works for all operating systems, and supports data work aligned with open science standards.

If you have any questions that are not answered on this page, please do not hesitate to get in touch. 

Software Access

• ArcGIS Pro Access at Harvard - This guide demonstrates how to access ArcGIS Pro at Harvard, including on your own computer, and various workstations on campus.
• Download QGIS - This guide covers how to download the free and open-source desktop GIS program, QGIS.

QGIS Hub

• Add a Basemap in QGIS - This tutorial covers how to add a basemap to a project. Basemaps let you have cartographic reference data that can serve as a backdrop to the datasets you are working with, to contextualize them in their proper geographic location.
• Manage Coordinate Reference Systems in QGIS - This guide explains the concept of coordinate reference systems. Coordinate reference systems underpin geospatial technology and are what allow data layers to appear in real-world location. Knowing the basics of how they operate within the software can help with common troubleshooting issues.
• Georeference in QGIS - This is a step-by-step tutorial that covers how to georeference, or align digital scans of maps so that they become datasets that can be layered into a GIS project along with other spatial data. 
• Add Spreadsheet Data (CSV/XLSX) to QGIS - This is a step-by-step tutorial with example spreadsheet data for how exactly to format your spreadsheets so that you can ingest them into the QGIS software as a mapping data layer.
• Perform a table join in QGIS - This guide covers the common GIS task of joining or merging a table of data with GIS boundary files. 
• Vectorizing from Historic Maps in QGIS - This is a step-by-step tutorial that covers how to create structured vector data for analysis and display by tracing or digitizing features from historic maps.

Data curation

• How to Download and Prepare Census Data for GIS Analysis - This guide goes into detail about common confusing elements to searching for and editing various census variables for use with GIS applications. 
• Accessing OpenStreetMap Data - This is a step-by-step tutorial for obtaining data from OpenStreetMap (OSM). OSM is a great source of crowd-contributed geographic features. Using OSM data can be helpful if other datasets are not available. 
• GIS Data Management Consultation Service Guide - This guide covers why you might consider working with the library on developing a plan for managing your GIS project data. There are examples and recommended next steps.
• Guide to Creating README-Style Metadata for GIS Data - This template gives some suggestions for how to get started documenting your GIS project, so that you are making sure to capture important context information as you work.
• Accessing Maps for Georeferencing - This guide covers how georeferencing works, and how to search for and obtain maps to use for georeferencing in the Harvard Map Collection.

Applied Projects

Visit our project gallery to browse example GIS projects from Harvard students, faculty, and researchers. 

Contact

This guide is maintained by the Harvard Map Collection. Visit our website to learn more about our services, including 1:1 appointments for project support.