GIS Fundamentals: A First Text on Geographic Information Systems, Sixth Edition Sixth Edition

I just want to say thank you.😊

I've been using GIS and related tech for over 25 years, and teaching GIS for almost 10. Most intro-level GIS texts are what' I'd call "procedural", meaning they aim to walk you through specific skills and as such most books are built around a specific software suite, normally ESRI ArcGIS. While this is good for getting students up and running with some GIS skills, what is often lacking is good explanation of the context and the "why" of the procedures.This book has exceptionally detailed and mostly very good explanation of the background and the "why" of GIS topics and is completely agnostic as to what GIS software you use. The amount of material in the book should keep most undergraduates busy for a full academic year (2 semesters or 3 quarters). And, there would also need to be external resources for the hand-on GIS software learning.I bought the book to study for a GIS licensing exam and it's a great resource for that. I teach with ArcGIS and have developed many labs and exercises over the years, so if I was to offer a full-year sequence for undergrads (of grad students), I'd definitely consider using this book for a course taught at a demanding and rigorous level.So bottom line: I'd say this book is a bit more than "fundamentals" and while it doesn't offer much at all in terms of hands-on material, the background detail is an excellent way to help make sure that GIS students don't treat GIS as a "black box" with no understanding of the theory and principles behind what they are doing.

I am 67 years old, and still working and learning. I was recently exposed to some mapping software that my leaders wanted me too learn. I adapted well to the software but felt like there were many fundamentals that I just did not know. After reading this book, I see that Professor Bolstad not only knows his discipline, but knows how to teach. I have tried to learn from many books off the shelf, and not everyone is as good a writer or teacher as they probably are a practitioner. Dr. Bolstad clearly knows how to explain a subject at just the correct level (of abstraction) so that one can understand the point of the concept. I'd recommend to anyone who needs a firm foundation in GIS.

It was a new book. Came on time helped my husband pass his class. Exactly the book that was required for class.

Overall this is an excellent textbook. The book is massive at over 700 pages, and thereby covers a vast breadth of information about GIS. The author included plenty of diagrams, review questions (with some answers), and examples of how GIS works. The writing is clear and everything is explained; even the modeling and complicated processes do not seem terrible after the author breaks them down. My only complaint is that the index leaves something to be desired especially for such a massive book. For instance, the entry for "latitude" claims that this only shows up on pages 30, 31, and 105 (in a 700 page book about GIS, mind you), while "metadata" gets the absurd listing of pages 188 - 633. This makes it difficult to find information if you do not already know where to look for it.

Got this book as recommended by my GIS certification course, goes into detail on basics of GIS fairly well. I will say that sometimes I find the writing style to be a little disorienting/ confusing. Overall I think they book is great for learning GIS. It May also be a great option for current GIS professionals as you can bookmark chapters for quick points of reference for more complex topics.

You don't really need them but access the color version of this book with the access code that comes with it. Full of good stuff. Don't need prior knowledge to succeed with it.

Paul Bolstad has a forestry background, as many foresters employ GIS in their natural resource and ecological studies. So it is natural he would write such a book. It is an interesting cultural/social anthropology study to examine what the book emphasizes and does not emphasize -- I learned such human activity analysis and way of thinking from Dr. Rober C. Kiste (who passed away in 2017), an anthropology professor who worked for a time at the University of Minnesota. At the University of Minnesota I learned GIS by hand in the mid-1970s using marker and trace paper for site design on complex landscapes. By the late 1980s I was using GIS digitally.During the era when GIS was accomplished by hand drawing, there was very little concern with complete cartographic accuracy (with base maps supplied by surveyors or the USGS) and a stronger emphasis upon spatial modeling the landscape to assist in planning and design. But once GIS became digitized, suddenly the emphasis shifted to technical accuracy consistent with cartography. Much of Bolstad's book is a primer in cartography and lessons from physical geography and never reaches the level of spatial analysis that was common even with early hand methods. Certainly the book is worth reading, but often one can do more complex spatial analysis with just Adobe Photoshop than many of the examples from the book and it is interesting what can be done performing GIS spatial analysis simply with a CAD program and civil engineering add-on software.I remember 30 years ago at my institution, at a meeting of the GIS minds, promoting the wonders of GIS and new technology. One group finally published an article concerning GIS and wanted to know who had actually published any actual research in GIS, thinking they were the only ones and thus the leaders. In some respects they were right, no on else had actually published anything yet (they were still earning the software), until they got to me, being surprised I had five or six papers related to planning and design using GIS. I was no one special and when compared to others in my planning and design profession at other universities, I was relatively just a beginner. The meeting was an eye-opener to me.GIS has taken an odd turn with the dominance of ArcGIS, a product initiated by a University of Minnesota graduate, Jack Dangermond. In contrast, I was a big fan of MapFactory and later versions for classic Mac OS and eventually for PCs too -- it was much easier for students to use and great for spatial modeling, but such software has not been updated for current operating systems and only resides on my now ancient Mac computers. Many early GIS systems originated more or less from the same source code, GIRD and IMGRID at the University of Harvard. The turn was not what I imagined GIS would become back in the 1980s. Many of those who study GIS today seemed obsessed with the technicalities of cartography as a technician than actual spatial modeling. Bolstad's book is an outgrowth of that perspective. Think of the book as the fundamentals of cartography and less about GIS, and then read studies by McHarg, Steinitz, Lewis, Fabos, Tomlin, Hanna, Paulson, Berry, and many others to learn about spatial modeling with GIS. It will be a very different mindset.I do not mind the use of black and white images for the publication. And I appreciate the upgrading of the publication with new editions. Unless one has ever written a textbook, one may not fully appreciate the challenges of publishing and the devotion that Paul Bolstad has given to the topic. Bolstad's efforts are certainly much more popular and more widely used than anything I have ever written. He should be congratulated on his diligence and sense of duty. Publishers have informed me that about 50% of academic authors with good intentions never submit a finished manuscript. I am pleased to own a copy of the sixth edition.