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The purpose of this research paper is to explore library research that uses geographic information systems (GIS) as a tool to measure and analyze library services and establish future directions for this research area.

This study reviews the library literature using GIS. The study searched full text for geographic information systems in two databases, Library Literature and Information Full Text and Library, Information Science and Technology Abstracts (LISTA). The titles and abstracts of the search results were analyzed to gather only the research that used GIS as a tool to measure and analyze library services.

This review of the literature reveals research using GIS as a tool in two ways: to analyze service area populations, including facility site location and other service and resource decision making; and to manage facilities, including in‐library use and occupancy of library study space.

The findings are relevant for library and information science researchers and practitioners because they summarize a specific area of research that may be confusing for the novice, but beneficial to the field. Using GIS in practice and research could benefit library services by generating maps to convey more information than tables and text alone and by allowing spatial analysis of library services inside the library as well as in a library's service areas.

The paper provides future directions for an emerging research area and attempts to define subdivisions within this research area to clarify the area for researchers and practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to explore library research that uses geographic information systems (GIS) as a tool to evaluate library services and resources to ascertain current trends and establish future directions for this growing research area.

The study searched full text for geographic information systems in two databases: Library and Information Science Source (LISS) and Library, Information Science and Technology Abstracts (LISTA), replicating the method used in a prior literature review. The titles and abstracts of the search results were analyzed to gather only the research that used GIS as a tool to measure and analyze library services.

This study found growth in the last decade for library research using GIS. There remain two ways the tool is primarily used: to analyze service areas and to manage facilities and collections.

The findings are relevant for library and information science researchers and practitioners because they summarize a specific area of research that has grown and changed and that still has potential to be used more widely. Using GIS in practice and research could benefit all library users and nonusers because spatial analysis facilitates more precise and informed delivery of services and resources.

The paper provides future directions for use of GIS in library research and attempts to define subdivisions within this research area to clarify the area for researchers and practitioners.

The rapidly emerging of Mobile Internet and the constantly increasing of wireless subscribers' number bring new opportunities and challenges to geographic information sharing and accessing. Current Web GISs, which are accessed by using connection based approaches, are very inefficient in fulfilling the requirements of GIS applications under open, dynamic, heterogeneous and distributed computing environments such as (Mobile) Internet. In this paper, we propose a new system for accessing and sharing distributed geographic information by using mobile agent and GML technologies, in which mobile agents are used to overcome the limitations of traditional distributed computing paradigms in (mobile) Internet context and GML is adopted as the common format for spatial information wrapping and mediation, while SVG is used as a web‐map publishing format that can be processed and displayed in Web browser. A prototype is implemented, which demonstrates the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method.

Geographical query formulation is one of the key difficulties for users in search engines. The purpose of this study is to improve geographical search by proposing a novel geographical query reformulation (GQR) technique using a geographical taxonomy and word senses.

This work introduces an approach for GQR, which combines a method of query components separation that uses GeoNames, a technique for reformulating these components using WordNet and a geographic taxonomy constructed using the latent semantic analysis method.

The proposed approach was compared to two methods from the literature, using the mean average precision (MAP) and the precision at 20 documents (P@20). The experimental results show that it outperforms the other techniques by 15.73% to 31.21% in terms of P@20 and by 17.81% to 35.52% in terms of MAP.

According to the experimental results, the best created taxonomy using the geographical adjacency taxonomy builder contains 7.67% of incorrect links. This paper believes that using a very big amount of data for taxonomy building can give better results. Thus, in future work, this paper intends to apply the approach in a big data context.

Despite this, the reformulation of geographical queries using the new proposed approach considerably improves the precision of queries and retrieves relevant documents that were not retrieved using the original queries. The strengths of the technique lie in the facts of reformulating both thematic and spatial entities and replacing the spatial entity of the query with terms that explain the intent of the query more precisely using a geographical taxonomy.

There is an open discussion in the geographic information community about the use of digital libraries or search engines for the discovery of resources. Some researchers suggest that search engines are a feasible alternative for searching geographic web services based on anecdotal evidence. The purpose of this study is to measure the performance of Bing (formerly Microsoft Live Search), Google and Yahoo! in searching standardised XML documents that describe, identify and locate geographic web services.

The study performed an automated evaluation of three search engines using their application programming interfaces. The queries asked for XML documents describing geographic web services, and documents containing links to those documents. Relevant XML documents linked from the documents found in the search results were also included in the evaluation.

The study reveals that the discovery of geographic web services in search engines does not require the use of advanced search operators. Data collected suggest that a resource‐oriented search should combine simple queries to search engines with the exploration of the pages linked from the search results. Finally the study identifies Yahoo! as the best performer.

This is the first study that measures and compares the performance of major search engines in the discovery of geographic web services. Previous studies were focused on demonstrating the technical feasibility of the approach. The paper also reveals that some technical advances in search engines could harm resource‐oriented queries.

Geotechnologies have a long tradition in several areas of society and research. The recent development of the ‘Internet of Everything’ (IoE) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technologies opened several doors to the contribution of tourism. Emergent technologies contributions to tourism and planning such as web mapping, augmented reality (AR), crowdsourcing and crowdsensing are relatively recent, and there is a lack of research around their potential for Creative Tourism enhancement. For example, combining web mapping with AR or storytelling can be an excellent contribution to operators, planners and tourists. For research purposes, new opportunities are open, particularly by integrating community-shared data. It is well known for the popularity of social networks, the exponential growth of photo sharing, but few studies have been implemented to understand their contribution to research. This chapter focuses on emerging geotechnologies concerning cultural mapping, Creative Tourism and sustainability. Since it is a new growing niche, more research is needed to develop and understand the potential of new approaches. Besides traditional techniques such as quantitative (e.g. surveys) and qualitative ones (e.g. interviews, focus groups and world café), it revises the role of geotechnologies on Creative Tourism development and growing activities. Results from case studies from Europe are analysed.

The purpose of this paper concerns the dimensions of relevance in information retrieval systems and their completeness in new retrieval contexts such as mobile search. Geography as a factor in relevance is little understood and information seeking is assumed to take place in indoor environments. Yet the rise of information seeking on the move using mobile devices implies the need to better understand the kind of situational relevance operating in this kind of context.

The paper outlines and explores a geographic information seeking process in which geographic information needs (conditioned by needs and tasks, in context) drive the acquisition and use of geographic information objects, which in turn influence geographic behaviour in the environment. Geographic relevance is defined as “a relation between a geographic information need” (like an attention span) and “the spatio‐temporal expression of the geographic information objects needed to satisfy it” (like an area of influence). Some empirical examples are given to indicate the theoretical and practical application of this work.

The paper sets out definitions of geographical information needs based on cognitive and geographic criteria, and proposes four canonical cases, which might be theorised as anomalous states of geographic knowledge (ASGK). The paper argues that geographic relevance is best defined as a spatio‐temporally extended relation between information need (an “attention” span) and geographic information object (a zone of “influence”), and it defines four domains of geographic relevance. Finally a model of geographic relevance is suggested in which attention and influence are modelled as map layers whose intersection can define the nature of the relation.

Geographic relevance is a new field of research that has so far been poorly defined and little researched. This paper sets out new principles for the study of geographic information behaviour.

The purpose of this study is to describe the role of geographical information system (GIS) in public libraries. The study shed light on various functions of GIS in the public library scenario. It further elaborates on the scope of GIS, its functions and the multiple challenges faced by library staff in implementation in public library.

A qualitative study was conducted by exploring articles published in top databases like Elsevier, Taylor and Francis, SpringerLink, Google Scholar, etc. The study reveals that GIS has been part of multiple businesses for the past few years, and its role is expanding at an alarming rate in public libraries for the past 10 years.

The study reveals that GIS deals with the geospatial characteristics of the data set, and the public library’s prime role is to visualize large quantities of disparate data in one data set.

The study will further wider the scope of the GIS in public library scenario. Experts in GIS and library field will get an extensive information and optimum benefits by reading this paper.

This article aims to provide an annotated bibliography of some of the geographic information system (GIS) resources, specifically data sets, available to libraries and researchers. Drawing on the collective authors' experience working with the GIS resources, this article aims to help librarians interested in developing and building their GIS collection.

A literature review was performed using library databases, as well as consulting various library subject guides on the topic. Idaho State University is home to the GIS Training and Research Center and the university offers Master's degrees in Geographic Information Science and Historical Resources Management; the authors consulted graduate GIS students on resources used in the program.

There is a large body of literature on GIS. This annotated guide, while not comprehensive, is a solid start to a GIS resources collection.

No other annotated bibliography currently exists for those interested in building a library collection of GIS data sets.

The study aims to promote independent mobility for persons with visual impairment or legal blindness (VIB) by developing a Web-based wayfinding application using geographic information systems (GIS). While the literature mainly focuses on technical devices presenting results for wayfinding, a lack of integration of user needs is identified. The inclusive, participative developed application offers step-by-step directions for pre-trip planning through an accessible user interface.

The paper presents a semi-automated approach to extract a pedestrian routing network data set based on open government data and field survey. User profiles calculate different routes using a weighting scheme for landmarks, orientation hints, infrastructure of crossings and sidewalks. The adoption of ArcGIS Web AppBuilder widgets allows access of the user interface additionally through keyboard-only navigation and therefore screen-reader capability.

GIS offers a powerful tool to design network analysis for persons with VIB. The routing algorithm accesses different user profiles, returning individualized turn-by-turn directions. The complex set of attributes, including shorelines, landmarks and barriers, can be integrated by semi-automated processes.

The paper illustrates the benefit of GIS applications for wayfinding of persons with VIB to raise self-determination and independence.

A ubiquitous pedestrian sidewalk network for a medium-size city comprises a novelty, as research has mainly focused on small areas. The integration of shorelines next to a various number of hints, landmarks and potential barriers through semi-automated processes allows reproducibility and transferability of the model to other cities.