Newbie to the PG New(er) GIS User Group? Drop a quick post and introduce yourself!

[Laurel_Hill]

Hi! Welcome to this brand-new community! My name is Laurel Hill. I'm a horticulturist who is adding GIS to my tool bucket so I can better curate living collections at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. I'm new(er) to GIS and it's great to know there's a community of other newbies out here. Hopefully, we can teach and inspire each other! I'm kicking off this community introduction post, so I'll share a picture of sunny azaleas and my dog Coco Bean. I'm glad you're here!

 

[miller94Miller]

Greetings everyone, I'm Carolyn Miller and I'm the Plant Recorder for Beal Botanical Garden & Campus Arboretum at Michigan State University. I started using GIS about 9 years ago and took a variety of certifications to bring myself up to speed on the complexity of this program. I absolutely love working with GIS now! I use Field Maps for in the field collection and then Pro to add in more specific details on what I'm collecting. Looking forward to engaging with others in this technology. 

Carolyn

[AHeatherSummer]

Hi everyone!  I'm Heather Summer and I'm the Collections Manager (among other things) at the North Carolina Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill, NC. I have dabbled in GIS throughout my career, but mostly back in previous jobs when I was a field biologist conducting vegetation surveys and doing vegetation mapping. I have been at NCBG for about 12 years, but I have only been doing collections management there for the last several years. I am currently working on a comprehensive inventory to get our plant records up to date, as there was a huge gap where nobody was really keeping up with plant records. We used to use BG-base, but now use our own custom database hosted on the web. I am trying to start mapping our collections as well.  I should also mention that I recently completed a Graduate Certificate in GIS and am currently pursing a Masters in Geospatial Information Science and Technology at NC State University. Big thanks to Laurel for getting this community set up!

[Laurel_Hill]

Hello @AHeatherSummer 🙂 I can totally commiserate with the big job ahead of you as you pick up collection management and grind away on a comprehensive inventory. Would love to share stories some time or hear how you are getting on with that project. Feel free to create a blogpost on this community to share any updates or wins!

[ERSIArcGIS]

Hi, I'm Sylvan Kaufman.  I am the Science Advisor to Adkins Arboretum in Ridgely, MD (and I volunteer with the Santa Fe Botanic Garden in NM where I now live with their IRIS BG database). I learned a little about GIS basics in graduate school but haven't spent a lot of time using it.  Now though Adkins Arboretum's plant database is entirely GIS based  with help from the Washington College GIS Program, and we (me, the Horticulture and Natural Lands Director, and the Land Steward) need to learn a lot more to make it as useful as possible!  We have a good field collector app and an online map available to the public, but need to add directions on how to use the database for the public and want to link our StoryMaps and other content.  

[Laurel_Hill]

Sorry for delay in replying to your post @SylvanKaufman! I am very impressed with your organization's GIS hub and Experience Builder. That's some great GIS work.

[helf0023]

Hi everyone! My name is Lou Helf and I'm the Plant Recorder at the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. I have a graduate certificate in GIS and about 3 years of professional experience with Esri products. I'm entirely new to the plant collections world, though - I started this position in December.

I'm interested in making maps beautiful and easy to understand. I also want to continue to build my skills with Python scripting for automation and I'm basically fascinated by all things GIS - it's such a powerful tool! I'm excited to join this group and learn from and with you all!

[Laurel_Hill]

Hi @helf0023! We are so glad you're here! Please feel free to share, teach, suggest! If you have any plant record or living collections questions, ask away!!! I assume you've already joined American Public Gardens Association communities and/or your CMS software community? 

[helf0023]

Yes, I've joined APGA communities and it has been great to learn from others on the forums.

[PaulKoloszar]

Hey there all!

Paul Koloszar, plant records coordinator at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden here.

We use IrisBG and have had a consultant who set us up with a basemap, but we are looking into figuring out how to do field data collection (location points). Dropping points on the IrisBG map is only great where the locations to be mapped on the basemap are up-to-date. I'm hoping to get some plants mapped sooner than the next flyover is integrated, so...

[Laurel_Hill]

Hello, there @PaulKoloszar  and welcome! I hope the community here can help you in some small way. I wonder if your organization is a member of the Esri Nonprofit Program, if you all have AGOL accounts, what your IrisBG version is installed, and if the IrisBG-ArcGIS Sync is a possible solution. If you haven't yet touched base with the amazing @AndresVasquez or the wonderful support team at IrisBG, maybe also reach out to them for support. Good luck! Feel free to post a question or draft a blog for the community page and let us know how it goes!