The GIS Technologies Department of Kane County will host their annual GIS Day Open House tomorrow. This event will be held in the Auditorium of Building A at the Kane County Government Center, 719 Batavia Avenue, Geneva. Hours for the open house will be from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.
The centerpiece of the National Geographic Society’s Geography Awareness Week, GIS Day is a global event where thousands of users of geographic information system (GIS) technology open their doors to schools, businesses, and the general public to showcase real-world applications of this exciting technology.
A GIS is a computer-based mapping tool that takes information about geographic locations such as streets, buildings, water features, and terrain, and translates these features into visual layers. Being able to see all of these features on one map gives users at every level a better understanding of a particular location and enables planners and analysts to make informed decisions about their communities, for both immediate and long-range needs. In recent years, the power of GIS technology has also been applied to key issues such as support of homeland security initiatives, and disaster response efforts following catastrophic events such as Hurricane Katrina or the recent wildfires in Southern California.
Kane County is joining the National Geographic Society, the Association of American Geographers (AAG), the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS), the Library of Congress, the US Geological Survey, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard and GIS-industry leader ESRI in presenting this technology.
