Media and Publications

"Theodore Roosevelt's Elkhorn Ranch in North Dakota is often called the Walden Pond of the West. But Roosevelt's ranch is now feeling the pressure of an oil boom that is industrializing the local landscape. Critics say a proposed gravel pit and a bridge could destroy the very thing that made such a lasting impression on Roosevelt: the restorative power of wilderness.

Center Media Fellow Lisa M. Hamilton and Executive Director Jon Christensen appear on KQED's "Forum" radio program to discuss the new project "Real Rural."

"North Dakota has a low 3.5 percent unemployment rate and a state budget with a billion dollar surplus. That's because of a major oil boom in the western part of the state, a discovery of at least 2 billion barrels to be gained by fracking — the controversial process of injecting fluid deep into underground rock formations to force the oil out."

A look at how Texas stacks up against other parts of the U.S. in water rates, single-family usage, precipitation and drought. Produced in collaboration with the Texas Tribune.

An interactive map of the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta comparing the historical habitat with the present day landscape, produced in collaboration with KQED Public Media and the San Francisco Estuary Institute.

The Sophomore College course Water in the West sent 12 students and four faculty on a 13-day excursion down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. This map highlights some of the places they encountered, including hiking trails, slot canyons, difficult rapids and other natural features. 

An interactive map created as a supplement to the Harper's Magazine article “The Long Draw,” which appeared in the January 2012 issue of the magazine.

Created for the Rural West Initiative's report on newspapers in the West, his visualization plots over 140,000 newspapers published over three centuries in the United States. The data comes from the Library of Congress' "Chronicling America" project, which maintains a regularly updated directory of newspapers.  

In June, the Center's faculty co-directors Richard White and David M. Kennedy sat for a thought-provoking conversation about the transcontinental railroad – and the tycoons who built it – at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco.

Journalists are coping with the rising information flood by borrowing data visualization techniques from computer scientists, researchers and artists. Some newsrooms are already beginning to retool their staffs and systems to prepare for a future in which data becomes a medium. But how do we communicate with data, how can traditional narratives be fused with sophisticated, interactive information displays?

"California has caught gold fever again," writes Jon Christensen, citing record-high prices for gold, a depressed economy in the Sierras, and a lingering sense that there's gold left to find. But, he writes, "For all the talk of a new gold rush, there is precious little gold coming out of the Mother Lode these days."

The recession has afforded a unique opportunity for land trusts to protect more of the West’s private open land through direct acquisitions and, increasingly, conservation easements, writes a group of Center researchers.

This working paper policy brief sets out to examine fossil fuel production in the American West in the context of the global economy. Specifically, this brief intends to examine how foreign countries and foreign corporations influence fossil fuel production in the American West, and it examines direct foreign influence in the American West in the form of investment and indirect foreign influence in the form of demand for fossil fuels.

Article on the influence of data mining and visualization on news infographics.

From Nieman Lab: Geoff McGhee teams up with two European colleagues — Mirko Lorenz, a German information architect and journalist, and Nicolas Kayser-Bril, head data journalist at OWNI in France — to argue that news organizations should restructure themselves as data generators, gatherers, and analyzers. They believe that selling trusted data should be the foundation of journalism’s new business model. Give their argument a look.

Geoff McGhee and Lauren Sommer talk about their interactive map and data visualization on the historical Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Presentation to Tableau Software in Seattle, Washington on July 30, 2012.

Presentation to the Show, Don't Tell workshop at the 20th Malofiej Infographics Congress.

Presentation to Adobe Education Community on Jan. 26, 2012, looking at applications of data visualization at the Bill Lane Center, the larger Stanford community, and in academia in general.

Presentation to the Visual.ly Data Visualization Meetup

Presentation slides for the May 6, 2011 session of the Tooling Up for Digital Histories workshop (HIST299D/ENG299D). The topics addressed include genres of visualization and the basic process from concept to execution. (from short description field)

Presentation of critical issues around Water in the West, by David M. Kennedy.