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Aboriginal communities in Australia must have mapping information and technology to effectively and independently administer their land holdings and to define, evidence and thus protect their community and cultural identity. The purpose of this paper is to report on a pilot project that developed a customisable education programme to support Indigenous communities in the uptake of spatial mapping technologies to protect and manage cultural heritage in Victoria, Australia.

A training programme to support Wadawurrung capabilities in spatial mapping technologies was developed, delivered and evaluated. Concurrently, the system's database was indigenised by Wadawurrung cultural heritage workers. Types and numbers of culturally significant sites mapped using the technologies were collated. The impact of the training and technologies for students and the Wadawurrung community was gauged through participation levels and evaluations. The approach to indigenous spatial mapping projects is informed by postcolonial theories interrogating neo-colonialist cartographic practices.

Indigenous communities need to be resourced in the uptake of spatial mapping technologies and if universities are going to be involved in co-developing positive learning experiences that encourage the uptake of the technologies, they must have appropriate and respectful relationships with Aboriginal communities. Training programmes need to accommodate learners with diverse educational experiences and technological wherewithal.

Findings from the training evaluations are based on a small number of participants; however, they seem to be supported by literature.

The education model developed is customisable for any Indigenous community in Australia.

The social and political importance of spatial mapping technologies for Indigenous Australians is evident as is the need for educational providers to have appropriate and respectful relationships with Aboriginal communities to co-develop positive learning experiences that encourage the uptake of the technologies.

The Wadawurrung Dya Baap Ngobeeyt Cultural Heritage Mapping and Management Project developed practical strategies to build community capacity in Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Management and Protection. The educational programme developed supported learners to use technologies in cultural heritage management. Data were collected using community-developed fields for inclusion and culturally appropriate encryption of data.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the data connection, spatial distribution characteristics and trends in genealogical information. First, it implements a spatial-temporal visualization of the Hakka genealogical information system that makes these individual family pedigree charts appear as one seamless genealogy to family and researchers seeking connections and family history all over the world. Second, this study applies migration analysis by applying big data technologies to Hakka genealogies to investigate the migration patterns of the Hakka ethnic group in Taiwan between 1954 and 2014. This innovative library service enhances the Hakka genealogical migration analysis using big data.

The platform is designed for the exchange of genealogical data to be used in big data analysis. This study integrates big data and geographic information systems (GIS) to map the population distribution themes. The general procedure included collecting genealogical big data, geographic encoding, gathering the map information, GIS layer integration and migration map production.

The analytical results demonstrate that big data technology is highly appropriate for family migration history analysis, given the increasing volume, velocity and variety of genealogical data. The spatial-temporal visualization of the genealogical research platform can follow family history and migration paths, and dynamically generate roadmaps to simplify the cartographic steps.

Technology that combines big data and GIS is suitable for performing migration analysis based on genealogy. A web-based application for spatial-temporal genealogical information also demonstrates the contribution of innovative library services.

Big data play a dominant role in library services, and in turn, provide an active library service. These findings indicate that big data technology can provide a suitable tool for improving library services.

Online genealogy and family trees are linked with large-volume, growing data sets that are complex and have multiple, autonomous sources. The migration analysis using big data has the potential to help genealogy researchers to construct minority ethnic history.

This purpose of this paper is to explore the developments which have precipitated the use and integration of geographical information systems (GIS) within the South African Police Services (SAPS).

The paper provides a historical overview of GIS within South Africa, supplemented with the legislative origins of the integration of GIS within policing in South Africa. Various spatial analytic operations that GIS technology affords are highlighted to illustrate the potential that the technology offers to law enforcement agencies in South Africa.

A number of challenges face the full integration of GIS within the day‐to‐day policing operations of the SAPS. Several critical success factors are identified which need to be eminently satisfied before the widespread integration of GIS within the SAPS can be achieved.

GIS is envisaged as a tool to benefit the criminal justice community by playing an important role in the policing and crime prevention process. This paper identifies the major inhibitors to the potential offered by GIS to supplement policing within a South African context.

This study integrates high spatial resolution remote sensor data with geographic information system (GIS) data and multi‐criteria analysis to develop a methodology to model disaster risk for flood risk management and in peat swamp forest fires in order to assist in providing decision support systems for emergency operations and disaster prevention. Landslides are the result of a wide variety of processes, including geological, geomorphological and meteorological factors. Spatial technology has the ability to assess and estimate regions of landslide hazard by creating thematic maps and overlapping them to produce a final hazard map which classifies regions according to three categories of risk.

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.

This exploratory study, a Ph.D. dissertation completed at the University of Western Ontario in 2013, examines the materially embedded relations of power between library users and staff in public libraries and how building design regulates spatial behavior according to organizational objectives. It considers three public library buildings as organization spaces (Dale & Burrell, 2008) and determines the extent to which their spatial organizations reproduce the relations of power between the library and its public that originated with the modern public library building type ca. 1900. Adopting a multicase study design, I conducted site visits to three, purposefully selected public library buildings of similar size but various ages. Site visits included: blueprint analysis; organizational document analysis; in-depth, semi-structured interviews with library users and library staff; cognitive mapping exercises; observations; and photography.

Despite newer approaches to designing public library buildings, the use of newer information technologies, and the emergence of newer paradigms of library service delivery (e.g., the user-centered model), findings strongly suggest that the library as an organization still relies on many of the same socio-spatial models of control as it did one century ago when public library design first became standardized. The three public libraries examined show spatial organizations that were designed primarily with the librarian, library materials, and library operations in mind far more than the library user or the user’s many needs. This not only calls into question the public library’s progressiveness over the last century but also hints at its ability to survive in the new century.

The transition to a low carbon future is an emerging challenge and requires the planning and designing of sustainable energy landscapes – landscapes that provide renewable energy while safeguarding the supply of other ecosystem services. The aim of this paper is to present the application of an ecosystem services trade-off assessment in the development of sustainable energy landscapes for long-term strategic planning in a case study in Schouwen-Duivenland, The Netherlands.

The application consists in three activities: in (1) stakeholder mapping hot spots of ecosystem services and renewable energy technologies in a workshop, (2) landscape design principles being discussed by a focus group, (3) experts gathering the information and proceeding with an assessment of the potential synergies and trade-offs.

The case study indicates that (1) deploying the ecosystem services framework in planning and design can enhance the development of sustainable energy landscapes, (2) diversified and accurate spatial reference systems advance the trade-off analysis of both regulating and cultural ecosystem services and (3) the involvement of local stakeholders can advance the trade-off analysis and, ultimately, facilitates the transition to a low-carbon future with sustainable energy landscapes.

The originality of this research lies in the creation of an approach for the deployment of ecosystem services in the planning and design of energy transition. This is useful to advance energy transition by enhancing research methods, by providing methods useful for planners and designers and by supporting communities pursuing energy self-sufficiency in a sustainable manner.

Geographic information systems (GIS) are used in business and government and have potentially powerful applications to the library, specifically “interior GIS” mapping of the collection itself. This paper seeks to argue for the implementation of GIS software in library collection analysis.

The paper explains GIS history, the technology, design with spreadsheet and ILS database, statistical advancements, power of the GIS connection, and the importance of “democratizing” technology for libraries.

GIS is a powerful tool for any business or organization that keeps inventory and monitors transactional usage. GIS is going to be implemented in libraries sooner rather than later. The libraries that implement GIS early will have an intellectual advantage over those coming on‐board late. GIS should be part of collection librarian technology.

Librarians can benefit from visually analyzing the collection and its use trends. GIS will allow librarians to forecast demand for future allocations, uncover collection strengths and weaknesses, and monitor statistics in a way that is impossible with current spreadsheets. Managers will be able to track interlibrary loan trends, branch and neighborhood use volumes and will be able to match use maps with building layout and design for better functionality and loss prevention.

GIS will revolutionize statistical analysis in every field it enters. It is argued in the paper to be the first modern tool for the twenty‐first century librarian, the first piece of technology to serve the librarian first, with system and user as beneficiary of the product of GIS analysis.

This paper introduces GIS to a new audience and to those familiar with GIS, applies GIS in a new direction, to the interior space of the library and its items as subject.