Hi, Bess.

Check out the online trainings from OpenGeo, a company based in New
York City that has many of the major geospatial open source developers
on their payroll (so they really know what they are talking about):
    http://opengeo.org/products/training/

There are so many opensource geospatial softwares that it can be
difficult to understand how they are all related, but you would do
well to focus on PostGIS and GeoServer.  (OpenLayers is good too, but
now has some healthy competition from lighter-weight javascript
libraries like Leaflet.)

OSGeo (the foundation, not to be confused with OpenGeo, the company)
has a bootable DVD that will let you run most of the available open
source geospatial software without having to install anything first:
    http://live.osgeo.org/

The FOSS4G conference is a great place to learn more; there are
usually plenty of pre-conference workshops for the major projects.
The 2013 conference is going to be in the UK, but there will also be a
regional conference in Minneapolis, May 22-24:
    http://foss4g-na.org/

We are currently planning a complete rewrite of our geospatial data
repository, to be based on OpenGeoportal, which originated at Tufts
and now has several other deployments elsewhere.  Its major strength
is its excellent spatial relevance ranking (something which fails
miserably in nearly every other geodata portal I've ever seen)
implemented using Solr.  It also uses GeoServer, OpenLayers, etc.
    http://opengeoportal.org/

I'd be interested in knowing how that online course turns out, and
would be happy to try to help out if you run into any stumbling
blocks.

Cheers,
Keith

Keith Jenkins
GIS/Geospatial Applications Librarian, Cornell University

On Sat, Dec 1, 2012 at 6:28 PM, Bess Sadler <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> There's an interesting thread going on around code4lib study groups for a given MOOC (or, presumably, other kinds of online training).
>
> I am currently attempting to educate myself in the subject of how to design, build, and maintain a spatial data infrastructure for a library[1]. This will serve out our local GIS resources, enabling them to be incorporated into online mapping programs. I know that this is something that many academic libraries are going to have to tackle eventually. Luckily there are some great open source tools out there for tackling this job, but unluckily there is not a lot of training that I have been able to find.
>
> I have uncovered one online course that looks pretty good: http://www.geospatialtraining.com/index.php?option=com_catalog&view=node&id=71%3Aopen-source-gis-bootcamp&Itemid=108
>
> I signed up, but I haven't got very far yet. I wonder if having code4lib collaborators would help? If anyone else is undertaking a project like this and would like to form a support / study group, please let me know.
>
> Cheers,
> Bess
>
> [1]We are also hiring a GIS developer: http://goo.gl/PURkZ