Database Reference
In-Depth Information
GI community and has been so for many years. We have seen in the previous chapter
that geography does indeed occur in many areas, and it is this frequency of occur-
rence that makes GI a useful vector for data integration. But 80%? Although the
statement is often made, it is never accompanied by any reference to substantiate it;
it is almost as if because it has been around for so long it is unchallengeable, and in
any case logically it must be right. Well, maybe. In fact, some have questioned this
and investigated its origins. The statement can be traced to the following: “A 1986
brochure published by the Municipality of Burnaby, British Columbia, reported the
results of a needs analysis for an urban Geographic Information System (GIS) in
that municipality: eighty to ninety percent of all the information collected and used
was related to geography” (Huxhold, 1991).
2
So, it appears that this statement only
refers to data found within a local authority where one would expect there to be a
significant geographic interest. It cannot be extrapolated to cover all organizations.
Further, the original source was a brochure—perhaps not the most reliable source of
information and almost certainly not subject to peer review. So, how factual is this
“fact” after all? The best that can be said is that it is unproven, unlikely to be correct,
and most likely to be an overestimate. Now, the point is not that GI is unimportant,
but that this is indicative of the GI community overestimating its importance, and
that this reinforces a GI-centric view of the world. It is perhaps also enlightening that
a community could be so confident in its own self-importance that one of the most
frequently repeated statements was not questioned for almost 20 years. Lest we are
too hard on the GI community, it is fair to say that this introverted nature is true of
most professional communities to a greater or lesser extent. In fact, for these commu-
nities
working within themselves
, it is also a perfectly reasonable viewpoint. If you
are only concerned with exchanging information with like-minded people, then the
specialism that binds you together is the center of your closed world and enables
local standards to be agreed through a shared understanding.
This has resulted in the emergence of many different communities that are learn-
ing to communicate better within themselves (through local standards) but struggle
when exchanging data with others. If only other communities would realize that they
should talk to us using our standards. It is oft said that the problem with standards
is that there are so many to choose from, but we would argue that the fundamen-
tal problem is that most standards only work well within a particular community.
Certain standards can have a truly global reach: The metric measurement system is
one such obvious example, although even here there is still some resistance in certain
Anglo-Saxon societies. But, more often than not standards are specialized to a single
community of users.
Last, it is worth remembering that while a formal GI community exists and oper-
ates with agreed standards (especially within government), increasingly GI is being
used in a more informal sense by those who would not consider themselves members
of the GI community and are probably unaware of its existence or standards. These
people will use GI as a means to an end and are more and more doing so in the form
of Web applications and services. For these people as much as those using more
formal methods, the Semantic Web and Linked Data offer the potential to better
exploit their information resources.
