In a geography of Asia class I took last semester, possible ways for individuals to engage in responsible tourism was discussed. Most often, much research was required in order to educating oneself on local conditions or current events. However, sifting through the biased perspectives of local media or governments can be a challenging activity. Especially when trying to understand how tourism impacts marginalized communities, understanding this can be an important factor. I think that a geo-library can facilitate learning in this case, where tourists can query and access information depending on what region they are in. The option of seeking out academic articles can enable people to gain scholarly perspectives that may more accurately represent local conditions.
As the article by Goodchild et al. mentions, however, an issue arises when footprints or terms of searches are ill-defined. With regards to tourism, it would seem that this problem would be magnified in remote areas. For example, as we know from our discussion on ontologies, defining objects is very challenging, especially when multiple languages are being considered. Further, less information is available for remote areas in general and so while geo-libraries may be extremely enabling in many aspects, they may also be limiting for areas not well-represented.
Perhaps an interesting comparison is likening a geo-library to a mental map. While the regions that I best understand will likely have the most amount of detail, it will not include important elements belonging to another individual’s mental map. As Goodchild et al. posit, objects with ill-defined terms that are not well-represented in a geo-library can also be of great significance to the lives of individuals at a local level. In other words, while a place name or building may not appear in a geo-library query (or my mental map), it may still be very relevant to many people. Determining how to incorporate under-represented features will be a challenging, but crucial issue in the development of geo-libraries.
– jeremy