By ESRI Press

Book vitals
Author: Gina Clemmer
Paperback: 156 pages
Publisher: ESRI Press (August 1, 2010)
Available at Amazon.com

True to its title, The GIS: 20 Essential Skills zooms right past GIS theory and gets right to the heart of the task. Chapters narrow the wide capabilities of the powerful ArcGIS software to a few essential tasks. This makes this book particularly useful for people who use ArcGIS in the periphery of their work, or as a guide for knowledgeable beginners who need a quick start into the software.

The GIS: 20 Essential Skills describes how to: navigate the ArcGIS interface, prepare, edit and analyze data, and digitize raster images. The book addresses the basics: shapefiles, layers, projections, vectors, tabular data, attributes, queries, joins, clips and buffers, and map design. What it does not address geostatisical analysis or anything further for which GIS theory must be explained, nor is that the intention.

Exercises
The GIS: 20 Essential Skills is arranged as a lesson book, with exercises for the reader. The author has carefully thought out the basic GIS operations that most GIS users will need and use most frequently, such as “Joining data to maps” and “Working with aattribute tables.” Each chapter is clearly titled with the topic or goal, and a short preface sets up the chapter. A brief introduction sets up the goal for the chapter exercise and the lessons are given step-by-step. While the book can be a good resource for the GIS beginner, the full value comes from the exercises and the reader should be prepared follow along on a PC using the ArcGIS software.

The book directs the user to download a trial copy of ArcGIS, and the publisher provides a CD-ROM for data that is to be used with the lessons.

Exercises are clear in purpose, with instructions that are specific when they need to be, without slowing down the lesson. The lessons are easy to follow and laid out with purpose in mind, and illustrations to show the operation, as well as the result.

Sidebars are interspersed throughout the book to give essential background information on GIS whys and hows, or to point out crucial steps.

Wrap up
A useful tutorial for the GIS beginner and those who need a quick introduction into the software or those who use ArcGIS infrequently. The book quickly gets into the how-to’s of several essential GIS computations, without steeping the user in theory. The operations are thoughtfully selected for usefulness and frequency or necessity of use, and the step-by-step instructions move the user quickly through the lesson toward the chapter’s goal.

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