About The Berkeley Geography Website

The Geography Department website was one of the first departmental sites at UC Berkeley, dating from 1994, when the World Wide Web was just beginning its surge into mainstream media. Our Computing Facilities Manager Don Bain created the first site and has maintained it through the years with the help of Natalia Vonnegut, MSO, and Delores Dillard, AAII. As the site expanded new categories were added until the navigation became unruly and cumbersome. This situation prompted the department to reorganize and redesign the site.
Called on to complete this task, in January 2001, was Darin Jensen, the department's new staff cartographer. Cartography's inherently graphic nature and Darin's previous (but limited) experience with HTML made him the obvious choice in the department for such a task. To aid in the design and construction of the new site, three undergraduate students were recruited. Yelena Fenik, Mitra Forati, and Angela Meehan assisted Darin and each received 2 units of credit for their work.
Because we are an institutional site, rather than an entertainment or commerce site, the design group choose to keep the interface simple and avoid technologies that require special plug-ins or software. We hope the site will prove to be intuitive to navigate and pleasant to look at.
Please feel free to contact Darin Jensen with any comments or questions about the site. djensen@berkeley.edu