Bolstad Chapter 4- Data Sources and Data Entry

There are many sources of spatial data which can be divided into 2 forms: hardcopy and digital. Hardcopy forms include any drawn, written, or printed documents and were the most common storage for spatial data until the 1980s when GIS came onto the scene in a major way. Digital forms of spatial data are those in computer-compatible format. Digital data are often from hardcopy maps that have been converted over to digital format. The chapter goes into specifics about the process of digitizing data.

This chapter also talks about different types of maps such as feature, choropleth, dot-density, and isopleth (or contour) maps as well as map scale and map generalization.