Geospatial Data for Design: Current and Emerging Library Provision of Expertise and Assistance

This presentation discusses the contemporary provision of geospatial expertise and assistance in the context of a graduate school of design and it explores the future trajectory of those services. It identifies current challenges and explores how dramatic shifts in computational availability (Artificial Intelligence, virtual reality, high performance computing, and pervasive and always available networks) are influencing the ways in which expertise and assistance are provided. Geographic Information System services have existed in academic libraries for decades. Map and cartography divisions have existed in libraries for centuries. The provision of geospatial data expertise and assistance in libraries is nothing new. How the services are provided and the degree of expertise and breadth of materials (paper maps, digital data) made available is constantly evolving. The shifts that we are living in right now, with regard to how designers are educated and how scholars do scholarly work are not a gradual evolution but are instead punctuated tectonic shifts irrevocably altering the world in which we work. This presentation will weave together the practical experience of multiple dramatically different projects, their technical requirements, their scholarly contributions, and their indications of the future of geospatial work in libraries.