Data Views Search Murals Map Murals by Address User Assistance Feedback About muralBase Help Partners MuralArts.org Version 1.01 9/7/2004
		Instructions for new users of muralBase Welcome to muralBase, an interactive mapping application and database showcasing hundreds of murals that Philadelphia’s Mural Arts Project has created since 1990. With muralBase you can search for a particular mural or learn the geography of Philadelphia’s rich array of mural artists.  MuralBase was created by the Cartographic Modeling Lab (CML) at the University of Pennsylvania in partnership with the Mural Arts Program. Getting started: the toolbar The "toolbar" is located along the left hand side of the muralBase home page.  Start by clicking on one of the top two buttons on the toolbar. The Search Murals button allows you to look up murals by theme, artist name, zipcode, or year created for a particular area of the city for Philadelphia as a whole. Or, you can select Map Murals by Address to enter an address and find out what murals are in its general vicinity. When you make a selection on the toolbar, the screen will change.  Use the pull-down menus or enter an address to identify the types or locations of murals of interest to you.   If you make a mistake or don’t like the results, try again.  You can also click on the Help tool or Feedback tool if you get stuck or want to report a bug.      Example # 1: Find the Herman Wrice mural in Mantua Suppose you would like to find out more about a mural painted as a memorial to Mantua community leader, Herman Wrice. Say that you know this mural is located near 34th and Spring Garden Streets. You can click Map Murals by Address, enter "3400 Spring Garden St" and then click View Map. Hint: you need to enter a full address, including house number and an abbreviation for street, avenue, etc. The resulting map display shows the address with a red star and all murals in the vicinity represented by blue squares. A thumbnail map on the left shows the location in relation to the rest of Philadelphia.     Using the interactive map tools to locate the mural The relatively large number of blue squares tells you that there are quite a few murals in this vicinity. To zoom in closer to 34th and Spring Garden Streets, click the zoom in button and then click on a point in the map close to this location. Now use the identify mural button and click on the nearby blue squares to determine if any of them represent the mural of Herman Wrice. This action brings up a new window called the Details Window for the mural (see section below on Details Window for more information). And in fact, the mural located between 33rd and 34th street on Spring Garden is the mural you are searching for, "A Tribute to Herman Wrice." Hint: you have to click on the identify mural tool in order to be able to open the details window. In addition to the zoom in and identify mural tools, other tools allow you to: zoom out:  To show a larger geographical area, click the zoom out button on the tool bar and move the mouse pointer over the map display. Click once to zoom around a point. Alternatively, click and drag a rectangle defining the area over which you want to zoom out.  move map:  You can move or recenter the map to show neighboring areas by clicking the move map button on the tool bar and clicking on a point in the map. Alternatively, click and drag the mouse to move the map around the display area.   Print:  Click on the printer icon on the tool bar to generate a printable map in a new window. Print to your locally installed printer. You can also select the Print Report button to set up a report page that prints your map, mural ID, legend, thumbnail map of the City, and the detail window (including artist profiles, if available) of the mural for which you have searched. Again, select your browser’s print function to print to your local printer. Customizing the Map with Add/Remove Layers Above the thumbnail map of the City, the Add/Remove Layers button allows you to turn on and off different map layers such as parks, schools and rivers. In the map you are making, imagine that you would like to move the map around in the screen so that you are seeing most of two neighborhoods: Powelton/West Powelton and Belmont/Mantua/East Park. You then would like to see nearby schools as well as other murals in these neighborhoods. First you need to select Add/Remove Layers which brings up the Change Map Layers box. The list of layers that can be added or removed appears along with check boxes after each selection. For this example, let’s place a check in the NIS neighborhoods box, and also in the charter, private and public school symbol boxes (you could also see school labels, but in a map of this scale, it would likely appear too busy). NIS neighborhoods are labeled and outlined in green, and schools show as small triangles. Click "Apply Changes" to see the results of your selections. Next you should select the move map tool and then click and drag on the map image until the green outlines of the neighborhoods you want to see are near the edges of the map. When the map reloads, you see the desired area along with the map layers you chose. You can continue to add/remove layers and fine tune the view to customize your map. When you like the final product, click Print Report.   Example #2: Search for murals by a specific artist If you did not know the general vicinity of the mural but instead knew the mural was created by David McShane, you could select the Search Mural tool from the muralBase toolbar. This tab brings up the "Search Mural Database" box and allows you to select a theme, artist, zipcode, or year and, optionally, a section of the City to limit the mural search. Pick one of these criteria by clicking on the radio button and making a selection using the pull-down menu. If you pick theme, artist or year, you can also limit your search to a particular section of the city. For this example, click on the pull-down menu symbol next to artist to show a list of all the artists in the mural database in alphabetical order. Find "McShane, David," and then click Search for Murals. The resulting Mural Search Results window contains a map of the selected murals on the left and a list of selected murals on the right. A check of the list shows us that mural #942 is called "A Tribute to Herman Wrice," and clicking on the mural’s title brings up the mural’s Details Window. Thumbnail sketches of each mural are available below this map and listing. From the Mural Search Results window, we can also click on Explore an Interactive Map or click on the map itself to bring up an interactive map with the tools discussed above.   The Details Window Now that you have found the mural, what can you learn about it? Two tabs in the Details Window hold information about the mural. On the left hand side, the Mural tab lists the mural’s unique identifying number, Title, Location, Zipcode, Completion Date, Site Type, Themes, Artist(s) names, and Sponsors. You can click on the artist’s name to uncover more detailed information including personal background, commentary, and a list and photos of other murals by the artist. If you are viewing a mural with photos available, the Photo Gallery tab on the right hand side includes enlarged photographs of the murals. Some murals have shots of the location before the mural was in place and some offer pictures of the mural being produced. Not all murals have photographs yet and photos will be added as they are made available by the Mural Arts Program. Click on a thumbnail photo to open a larger version of the image. You can move back and forth between the Mural tab and Photo Gallery tab by clicking on the tabs themselves. You can also use the forward and back keys on your internet browser to recall earlier screens and retrace your steps.   Learn by doing... Practice using muralBase to answer these questions: 1. How many murals are in the vicinity of 5800 Germantown Avenue? Which murals have photos? Were any produced by the same artist? 2. Use the zoom in, zoom out and move map tool buttons to navigate around Fairhill. How many murals are located in this neighborhood? 3. Which NIS neighborhood is home to Morton Brown’s mural? On what street is the mural located? 4. How many murals were created in North Philadelphia in 2000? In which zipcodes do most of the murals fall?   Problems  If you still have questions about the muralBase website or notice a problem with the application, click http://cml.upenn.edu/murals/mbFeedbackRequest.asp to fill out a NIS Feedback Form.  Return the form to CML via fax or by clicking on "Send Feedback to the CML." If you have questions about the murals or mural artists, direct them to the Mural Arts Program at info@muralarts.org.   Acknowledgement MuralBase was developed by the Cartographic Modeling Lab as part of its Neighborhood Information System project.  The NIS is supported by the William Penn Foundation and the City of Philadelphia. For more information about the CML, contact: Marlen Kokaz Cartographic Modeling Lab University of Pennsylvania mkokaz@sp2.upenn.edu http://cml.upenn.edu/ Copyright Notice: ©2001-2009 Cartographic Modeling Laboratory. All rights reserved.