The Leventhal Map & Education Center offers geospatial information services to help you create, find, manipulate and preserve information stored in digital formats compatible with mapping software and GIS (Geographic Information Systems).
Our specific services include:
- Cartinal, our guides & documentation portal;
- A robust data portal with special focus on Boston & New England; and
- One-on-one consultations with geospatial library staff.
Happy mapping!
Cartinal: The LMEC Documentation Database
Cartinal includes numerous guides, tutorial, and documentation sources for geospatial data and projects. You’ll find both step-by-step guides that are suitable for beginners, as well as more advanced documentation for our data services and resources.
What kinds of resources can I find in Cartinal?
- The digital textbook for our newest GIS course, Making Sense of Maps and Data
- A guide explaining common geospatial data formats
- Documentation on how to use the Atlascope portal to access our geotransformed atlas layers
- And much more!
The LMEC Data Portal
As part of a public data project, the LMEC makes a wide variety of geospatial datasets publicly available. We also developed our own metadata schema for describing GIS data.
What kinds of data can I find in the LMEC portal?
- Datasets related to Boston or New England cleaned up or preserved by the LMEC
- Datasets that are useful for teaching
- Datasets created during LMEC projects, programs, or publications
- Datasets relating to historical geography or BPL map collections
Make an Appointment or Request
Whether you’re a seasoned mapmaker looking for project feedback, or a newcomer to the world of digital cartography, we’re here to help! Please reach out with GIS questions, project ideas, dataset inquiries, and all other things geospatial.
What can our geospatial information library staff provide?
- Research consultations about your GIS data or mapping project
- Assistance with finding online data and software resources
- Tips for structuring your own data or reformatting existing data for new purposes
- Guides and tutorials on how to find and work with GIS data
- Resources for best practices on managing geographic information in historic archives
Please reach out to us using the form below: