Through the efforts of Professor Keith Clarke (and funded by NSF, SGI, ESRI, ENVI, UCSB, and Smallwood), the Geography Department has a laboratory built expressly to give undergraduates experience in Geographic Information Science: the Descartes Laboratory. The Star Lab is another room set up with computers for student use.

Facilities within the Geography-affiliated research units are constantly upgraded and include networked computer systems and workstations, image processing equipment and software, and related video and hardcopy peripheral devices. You can visit the web sites of all the units, which can be accessed through the Research page.

We have a photo section in the Geography Department web site, which will show some campus and class photos. The UCSB web site has a campus map and a virtual tour of the campus, which consists of a series of 360 degree panoramas. Of course, you could come see for yourself. There are campus tours, described on the Visitor Center section of UCSB's web site.

The campus library has over two million volumes and maintains a map library with close to 480,000 sheets of maps and 4.5 million remote-sensing images. The library is a full depository for U.S. Government publications, State of California publications, U.S. National Area Survey Charts, U.S.G.S. maps, and NASA materials. The library also has a unique image and map analysis facility with advanced image transfer devices, and houses the Alexandria Digital Library and Digital Earth Prototype.