Automatically Geocoding Higher Ed Institutions Using the Google Maps API and Google Spreadsheets

I recently needed to quickly create a map of higher education institutions Lumen is working with, and consequently needed LAT and LONG info for dozens of schools. Rather than do that all by hand, I created this little recipe for automatically retrieving coordinates given a school’s name using the Google Maps API and Google Spreadsheets. Here’s a demonstration of the recipe using a list of all the higher education institutions where I’ve taught:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aq0aF_AqiIz9dFRvRVd2Y0JVbHh6WllqcGVCS2VnbWc&usp=sharing

I fully realize I’m no Tony Hirst, but thought this was interesting enough to share.