Imagine the first decade of the 2000s, the Internet well-established, and the endless possibilities beginning to emerge in full. The possibilities for data sharing are immense. And then, on January 15th, 2001, it manifested in what is today recognized as an extraordinary project: Wikipedia. Today we know Wikipedia as an oft-reliable source, and while further references are always ideal, it is the perfect starting point for mining the internet of the immense amounts of data it has, as well as exploiting the research already done by many others in the global commons.
This is what came to mind when reading Goodchild’s introduction to Geolibraries. While I first thought of Google Earth, and the basemap it provides upon which to place georeferenced data, the further I read into his overview, the more I thought of Wikipedia, and how this platform seems to be a perfect way to bring the idea of geolibraries to reality. To further elucidate, I will go through a couple of Goodchild’s main questions at the end of his article.
First, he asks about intellectual property rights. Obviously, geolibraries will contain information that is more than just “fact” (in as much as things on Wikipedia are fact), such as musical pieces, building plans, etc that may not in fact be property of the global common. Perhaps copyright as is applied on other internet sharing sites such as Flickr could be a good start–is something a part of the global commons, is it licensed for creative use, or is it 100% copyrighted?
Goodchild also asks about the “infrastructure” of a geolibrary, as well as the economic feasibility. This too could be modelled from Wikipedia–a veritable container of a plethora of information, pictures, sound clips, and more. Wikipedia is founded by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-for-profit charitable organization–perhaps this is the route geolibraries must take: an endeavour to be undertaken by those passionate about Georeferenced information?
Finally, I would like to address the question of metadata. Goodchild asks how much metadata we need, how it should be catalogued, and elsewhere in the article, he speaks briefly again to a users own cognition. I believe with a “Global Commons” type of platform, like Wikipedia, there will be a lot of metadata, that can be edited continuously by multiple people and perspectives with the hopes of finding a neutral ground.
Obviously there are a lot of ways Wikipedia isn’t directly amenable to becoming a Geolibrary, but this is, in my opinion, an interesting model to start from–going from paper encyclopedias in physical libraries to online catalogues of information.
–sah
Tags: geolibraries