David F. Johnson

Geographic Information Retrieval and the World Wide Web: A Match Made in Electronic Space

This article looks at the access to geographic information through a review of information science theory and its application to the WWW. The two most common retrieval systems are information and data retrieval. A retrieval system has seven elements: retrieval models, indexing, match and retrieval, relevance, order, query languages and query specification. The goal of information retrieval is to match the users needs to the information that is in the system. Retrieval of geographic information is a combination of both information and data retrieval. Aids to effective retrieval of geographic information are: query languages that employ icons and natural language, automatic indexing of geographic information, and standardization of geographic information. One area that has seen an explosion of geographic information retrieval systems (GIRs) is the World Wide Web (WWW). The final section of this article discusses how seven WWW GIRs solve the the problem of matching the users information needs to the information in the system.