The middle of a Hurricane seems as good a time as any to begin putting together content for the new University of Richmond Spatial Analysis Blog. GIS has taken campus by storm. And, the winds of change are certainly in the air. This year, the SAL – our nickname for the Spatial Analysis Lab – will reach out to many more students, faculty and staff than ever before. Most of our new outreach is made possible by the acquisition of a SQL Database Server – a giant storage device housed deep in the recesses of the University’s data center below Millhiser. Meridian, our geographically-named server, can store 5 TB of geospatial data, serve it to a wide variety of users, and keep rock-solid backups of the same. The growing pains of the last few years have (I sincerely hope) been worth it. The goal, in simple terms, was to give us the space for large amounts of geospatial data and to be able to share data with as many folks on campus (and eventually in the world) as possible. Getting to this point was not easy. The School of Arts and Sciences committed significant financial resources to this new endeavor. I’ve committed a significant portion of the last 6-8 months figuring out how to work it. Okay, so I’m still figuring out how to work it. One of our former Lab Interns (now a UR Alumna) and I spent 6 solid weeks learning how to create databases on the new server, and create users and logins so that folks on campus could access the data without breaking it. We struggled to learn the distinction between Permissions and Privileges (what!?!). We employed a fascinating training technique – trial and error. Lots of errors. There were bad days when I thought “what have I done?” And good days when I proclaimed “look what I did!” In the end, we’ve got over a hundred pages of technical documentation to help us implement our plan. Over the next few weeks and months, the SAL will be making available many different kinds of geospatial data sets to the UR Community. We will be co-hosting 3 PETE workshops for folks interested in learning more about GIS Technology. We will be planning our 4th Annual GIS Day celebration (Wednesday, November 16). Here’s to a great year!