Current use and trends of Geospatial Collection Development Policies (GCDPs) in Map/GIS Libraries

The rapid increase of publications both in print and digital form raises costs while academic libraries budgets are constantly decreasing. At the same time academic libraries cannot ignore the continuous spread of open geographical data on the web. The construction of policies consist a major and substantial function for any library in order to develop geospatial collections and provide added value services to its users. Based on this rationale, the purpose of the current research is to determine the availability of geospatial collection policies and identify their specific characteristics as they emerge through their published texts. The population of these policy texts comes from the U.S.A., Canada, Australia and Europe, e.g. regions where the libraries have developed similar collections. In order to approach the topic of geospatial collection policies, two methodologies were used: a) research on libraries’ websites and b) content analysis. The sample of libraries that has been surveyed included 136 libraries with geospatial collections. In order to draw conclusions, it was necessary to determine the connection of the sample of libraries by participating in Map/GIS Libraries Associations such as ARL, MAGIRT, WAML, ANZMaps and MAGIC Group. From the sample of 136 libraries with collections and services regarding geographic information 53 (39%) policy documents were collected. The study of policy texts resulted their classification in six categories and relating to their extent they were divided into three types. After the examination of each text, the results were organized in tables and therefore eight major categories emerged. The results of the research established a baseline information about the current use and trends of collection development policies in Map/GIS libraries and lead to some conclusions regarding the geospatial collection development environment

Geospatial Collections in Institutional Repositories (IRs): a survey in Map/GIS Libraries

Changes in scholarly publishing along with the rapid developments in technology are affecting user expectations and forcing academic libraries to significant changes in providing access to geospatial data and develop new services. Institutional Repositories (IRs) are considered effective tools for showcasing an organization’s scientific research by making it publicly available. The aim of this study was to determine the awareness of the development of locally produced geospatial data in an institutional repository, among the Map/GIS libraries of the western world. Anonymous survey of 56 questions, divided in 6 sections and covering several topics, was sent to Map/GIS libraries, members of Map and Libraries’ Organizations of western world. The survey took place on July and October 2015 after two phases of pilot distribution. Out of 382 questionnaires we sent, a total of 80 were finally adequate to be used. This paper will present those results related with the collection of geospatial data in the IR (36 responses) produced by the members of library’s academic community. The responses showed a statistically significant trend to the development of a locally produced geospatial data collection in the IR, although the annual budget is considered by the Map/GIS Librarians as “not at all satisfying” while in majority respondents indicate the use of policies for the locally produced geospatial data collection in the repository. As the three most important issues for this collection, respondents indicate: 1. data and metadata 2. policies and 3. finance. The development of a geospatial data collection is rather complex particularly with respect to issues related to organizational challenges and use practices, therefore, Map/GIS Librarians seem to be convinced that the formulation of policies, the open access to the data will be the critical points to accomplish a beneficial collection of the locally produced geospatial data in the IR

Current use and trends of Geospatial Collection Development Policies (GCDPs) in Map/GIS Libraries

The rapid increase of publications both in print and digital form raises costs while academic libraries budgets are constantly decreasing. At the same time academic libraries cannot ignore the continuous spread of open geographical data on the web. The construction of policies consist a major and substantial function for any library in order to develop geospatial collections and provide added value services to its users. Based on this rationale, the purpose of the current research is to determine the availability of geospatial collection policies and identify their specific characteristics as they emerge through their published texts. The population of these policy texts comes from the U.S.A., Canada, Australia and Europe, e.g. regions where the libraries have developed similar collections. In order to approach the topic of geospatial collection policies, two methodologies were used: a) research on libraries’ websites and b) content analysis. The sample of libraries that has been surveyed included 136 libraries with geospatial collections. In order to draw conclusions, it was necessary to determine the connection of the sample of libraries by participating in Map/GIS Libraries Associations such as ARL, MAGIRT, WAML, ANZMaps and MAGIC Group. From the sample of 136 libraries with collections and services regarding geographic information 53 (39%) policy documents were collected. The study of policy texts results their classification in six categories and relating to their extent they were divided into three types. After the examination of each text, the results were organized in tables and therefore eight major categories emerged. The results of the research established a baseline information about the current use and trends of collection development policies in Map/GIS libraries and lead to some conclusions regarding the geospatial collection development environment

Current use and trends of Geospatial Collection Development Policies (GCDPs) in Map/GIS Libraries

The rapid increase of publications both in print and digital form raises costs while academic libraries budgets are constantly decreasing. At the same time academic libraries cannot ignore the continuous spread of open geographical data on the web. The construction of policies consist a major and substantial function for any library in order to develop geospatial collections and provide added value services to its users. Based on this rationale, the purpose of the current research is to determine the availability of geospatial collection policies and identify their specific characteristics as they emerge through their published texts. The population of these policy texts comes from the U.S.A., Canada, Australia and Europe, e.g. regions where the libraries have developed similar collections. In order to approach the topic of geospatial collection policies, two methodologies were used: a) research on libraries’ websites and b) content analysis. The sample of libraries that has been surveyed included 136 libraries with geospatial collections. In order to draw conclusions, it was necessary to determine the connection of the sample of libraries by participating in Map/GIS Libraries Associations such as ARL, MAGIRT, WAML, ANZMaps and MAGIC Group. From the sample of 136 libraries with collections and services regarding geographic information 53 (39%) policy documents were collected. The study of policy texts resulted their classification in six categories and relating to their extent they were divided into three types. After the examination of each text, the results were organized in tables and therefore eight major categories emerged. The results of the research established a baseline information about the current use and trends of collection development policies in Map/GIS libraries and lead to some conclusions regarding the geospatial collection development environment

Query Expansion of Zero-Hit Subject Searches: Using a Thesaurus in Conjunction with NLP Techniques

The focus of our study is zero-hit queries in keyword subject searches and the effort of increasing recall in these cases by reformulating and, then, expanding the initial queries using an external source of knowledge, namely a thesaurus. To this end, the objectives of this study are twofold. First, we perform the mapping of query terms to the thesaurus terms. Second, we use the matched terms to expand the user’s initial query by taking advantage of the thesaurus relations and implementing natural language processing (NLP) techniques. We report on the overall procedure and elaborate on key points and considerations of each step of the process

Current use and trends of Geospatial Collection Development Policies (GCDPs) in Map/GIS Libraries

The rapid increase of publications both in print and digital form raises costs while academic libraries budgets are constantly decreasing. At the same time academic libraries cannot ignore the continuous spread of open geographical data on the web. The construction of policies consist a major and substantial function for any library in order to develop geospatial collections and provide added value services to its users. Based on this rationale, the purpose of the current research is to determine the availability of geospatial collection policies and identify their specific characteristics as they emerge through their published texts. The population of these policy texts comes from the U.S.A., Canada, Australia and Europe, e.g. regions where the libraries have developed similar collections. In order to approach the topic of geospatial collection policies, two methodologies were used: a) research on libraries’ websites and b) content analysis. The sample of libraries that has been surveyed included 136 libraries with geospatial collections. In order to draw conclusions, it was necessary to determine the connection of the sample of libraries by participating in Map/GIS Libraries Associations such as ARL, MAGIRT, WAML, ANZMaps and MAGIC Group. From the sample of 136 libraries with collections and services regarding geographic information 53 (39%) policy documents were collected. The study of policy texts results their classification in six categories and relating to their extent they were divided into three types. After the examination of each text, the results were organized in tables and therefore eight major categories emerged. The results of the research established a baseline information about the current use and trends of collection development policies in Map/GIS libraries and lead to some conclusions regarding the geospatial collection development environment

Current use and trends of Geospatial Collection Development Policies(GCDPs) in Map/GIS Libraries

The rapid increase of publications both in print and digital form raises costs while academic libraries budgets are constantly decreasing. At the same time academic libraries cannot ignore the continuous spread of open geographical data on the web. The construction of policies consists a major and substantial function for any library in order to develop geospatial collections and provide added value services to its users. Based on this rationale, the purpose of the current research is to determine the availability of geospatial collection policies and identify their specific characteristics as they emerge through their published texts. The population of these policy texts comes from the U.S.A., Canada, Australia and Europe, e.g. regions where the libraries have developed similar collections. In order to approach the topic of geospatial collection policies, two methodologies were used: a) research on libraries’ websites and b) content analysis. The sample of libraries that has been surveyed included 136 libraries with geospatial collections. In order to draw conclusions, it was necessary to determine the connection of the sample of libraries by participating in Map/GIS Libraries Associations such as ARL, MAGIRT, WAML, ANZMaps and MAGIC Group. From the sample of 136 libraries with collections and services regarding geographic information 53 (39%) policy documents were collected. The study of policy texts resulted their classification in six categories and relating to their extent they were divided into three types. After the examination of each text, the results were organized in tables and therefore eight major categories emerged. The results of the research established a baseline information about the current use and trends of collection development policies in Map/GIS libraries and lead to some conclusions regarding the geospatial collection development environment

Geospatial data collection policies, technology and open source in websites of academic libraries worldwide

The proliferation of geospatial data demands the engagement of information organizations, such as academic libraries, for their management and diffusion. The purpose of this paper is to reveal issues related to the development of geospatial collections and explore their efficient use as required by the current information environment. Thus, a research conducted on 363 websites of academic libraries worldwide and 136 websites maintaining geospatial collections were identified. The research questions were formed based on international bibliography and we applied a content analysis method for data extraction. Findings show a significant activity of academic libraries in providing GIS services in accordance with high rates in user education programs, creating the use of geospatial collection and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) services more effective. Nevertheless, through their websites we obtained poor response to communicate geospatial collections policies. The majority of the academic libraries surveyed in this study provide commercial software to their users for managing data on a local level, while the minority of library patrons are able to use geospatial data via remote access. This paper explores aspects of development in geospatial collections in academic libraries that have not been adequately raised. Additionally, we provide an overview of geospatial collections worldwide