Computers, Society, and Nature

I find the topic of geo-libraries fascinating, particularly because of the incredible potential I think that they have in conveying ideas. It is a very powerful way of organizing information that allows for visual comparisons to be made. For example, related information that may be of use to a user may be more easily suggested or discovered, as information that is geographically related can displayed. The importance of geo-libraries in practice is also backed up, as the majority of map library users rank locational characteristics as the primary search key.

Since I’m a bit of a building/architecture nerd, I think the following is an interesting example of a geo-library:

http://skyscraperpage.com/cities/maps/

Perhaps this is a very simplified version of a geo-library, but it shows how an individual can search for information on proposed, under-construction, and/or competed buildings by selecting a geographic region. As one can see from the map, very useful visual information can be gained through pattern recognition. Clusterings of under construction buildings, for example, are easy to find.

While I think that this is an extremely useful tool, my example is one that may be much more straightforward than those discussed in Goodchild’s article. Most of the cities listed, for example, appear to have well-defined, uncontested boundaries (or perhaps they just appear that way?). Further, the uncertainty present in the information available for each building (location, type, developer, floor count) also seems to be relatively low.

Even though this example may be simplistic, I think that it points to the potential for geo-libraries to have a regional bias. By examining the list of cities available to search, for example, it is clear that this architecture website has a North American focus. However, perhaps technology will enable users to overcome this bias. An example provided by Goodchild is the use of geo-library ‘crawlers,’ which search the web looking for key terms based on geography. Despite their potential, these technologies also bring with them a variety of other problems. For instance, as mentioned by ClimateNYC, the issue of ontologies arises, where incorporating varying opinions and definitions proves to be troublesome.

Perhaps someone can answer this in their blog post, but I am uncertain as to the various forms geo-libraries can take. For example, since users can search for related businesses within a Google Maps map frame, would this be considered a type of geo-library?

– jeremy

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 15th, 2012 at 9:42 pm and is filed under 506, geographic information systems. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.