MDL Blog

Did you know that in addition to the Map & Data Library's live workshops and past workshop recordings, we also offer a number of self-paced online courses, that you can self-enroll and take at any time using your UTORID? They are built in… Read more ...

As we bundle ourselves up here in Toronto, let's take a moment to appreciate the wintry beauty of glaciers and snow-capped peaks, captured below in gorgeous mid-century Swiss topographic maps.
We are fortunate to have a complete 1964 set of maps of… Read more ...

Nick Field is our Data Support Specialist at the Map & Data Library. They have a PhD in the Study of Religion, and they are currently completing a Master of Information, both from the University of Toronto.  
Learn more about Nick:
Q:… Read more ...

The Map & Data Library follows the University of Toronto closure dates, so we will be closed Dec. 24, 2025 to Jan. 2, 2026 inclusive.
While our staff won't be around, there are still many ways to get help during the break:

Take on online self-… Read more ...

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
Hosted at the University of Michigan, the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) is a consortia of over 800 academic and research groups with a… Read more ...

The Map & Data Library's collection of fire insurance plans and atlases provides a wealth of information about the history of Toronto's built environment. These maps go back as far as 1880 and show details such as streets & railroads,… Read more ...

Celebrating GIS Day: Mapping for Everyone
Every November, we celebrate GIS Day - a global event that highlights the power of spatial thinking. Since 1999, it's been a day to share maps, tell stories, and invite others to explore the layers of… Read more ...

Researchers working with spatial data increasingly rely on authoritative basemaps, curated thematic layers and accessible climate information. Three Esri-affiliated resources—the Community Map of Canada, the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World, and the… Read more ...

Did you really want to attend a Map & Data Library workshop, but it conflicted with your schedule? 
Did you attend a workshop, but wish you could go back and review one section? 
Are you someone who prefers to work through workshop… Read more ...

Are you looking to learn a new technical skill once the term is over? Is reacquainting yourself with Excel, Tableau, PowerBI, Python, or R a holiday goal?
U of T has a subscription to the O'Reilly Online Learning platform, where you can read their… Read more ...

On Halloween, it’s easy to think of haunted houses and ghost stories, but what’s truly chilling for researchers is the sudden vanishing of data, the silence of a backup that never ran, the crash you didn’t anticipate, the repository that disappears… Read more ...

In Canada, data is often framed as a neutral resource—a tool governments use to guide policy and measure progress. Yet, when it comes to Indigenous communities, the ways in which information has historically been gathered, stored, and interpreted… Read more ...

Kelly Schultz (she/her) is a Data Librarian at the Map & Data Library (MDL). She supports faculty, staff, and students with qualitative data analysis and data visualization. She is also the teaching coordinator at MDL and offers various… Read more ...

We're excited to announce two guides from U of T Libraries designed to support researchers with their research data management (RDM) needs.
The Research Data Management Guide offers comprehensive resources and best practices to support you and your… Read more ...

In honour of LGBT History month, it is important to recognize that although looking at the data can tell you a lot about history, that understanding is only as good as the data it relies on. Historically, many marginalized groups were excluded from… Read more ...

November is going to be a busy month for data visualization! I'm offering a number of introductory workshops on Gephi, Tableau, Infographics, and new for this term, Power BI.
First up we have Gephi. Gephi is a free, open-source, point-and-click tool… Read more ...

The Map & Data Library is running a series of GIS workshops throughout the semester. Learn the basics, get into spatial analysis, or explore how to create beatiful online stories with maps!
MDL workshop offerings
Our longstanding series of… Read more ...

Long before GPS told us where to turn, John George Bartholomew was showing the world where to go. Known as “the Prince of Cartography,” this Edinburgh-born mapmaker (1860–1920) transformed not only how we see the world but how we understand it. His… Read more ...

Did you know that the Map & Data Library provides extensive support for a qualitative data analysis tool called NVivo? 
NVivo is an well-known qualitative data analysis tool that's been around since 1997! It supports all the stages of a… Read more ...

It's National Forest Week and National Tree Day! To celebrate, we're highlighting a geospatial dataset representing Southern Ontario's historic (pre-European settlement) forest landcover. 
Our featured dataset (depicted above) was created by… Read more ...

October is going to be a busy month for qualitative data analysis!
First off, I am offering introductory workshops on two qualitative data analysis tools: NVivo and MAXQDA.
The week of October 6th, we are offering 4 workshops on NVivo:

NVivo for… Read more ...

The Map & Data Library has launched new support for a qualitative data analysis tool called MAXQDA. If you're familiar with NVivo, this is an excellent alternative to consider.
MAXQDA provides all the functionality you expect, such as importing… Read more ...

MDL has a new, self-serve portal for some of our largest and most-popular datasets: feel free to visit the MDL Data SharePoint! Open now to current U of T faculty, staff, and students.
Some datasets hosted there include:

Gallup polls, including the… Read more ...

We have just received the latest (2024) City of Toronto orthoimagery files, available to current U of T students, staff, and faculty.
Key features:

High-resolution images (TIFFs)
Ready to use in GIS
Mostly leaf-off imagery
4-band imagery, with a… Read more ...

Map projections have been in the news lately: representatives of the African Union and advocacy groups are calling for a replacement of the Mercator projection (used frequently online, like in Google Maps) with the Equal Earth map. But you may well… Read more ...