The Geographic Awareness Tool: techniques for geo‐encoding digital library content

The purpose of this paper is to explore motivations for libraries to build location aware services.

The paper examines various techniques for generating geo‐referenced metadata, including converting placenames to coordinates and using entity extraction to discover places in unstructured text, such as abstracts. It describes several prototype services developed, which deliver geo‐referenced data in different ways – as search results overlaid onto a map, as location specific data delivered to location aware mobile devices just in time, and as raw structured metadata supplied by web services, which could be combined with other data sets in support of e‐science.

Although library metadata standards can accommodate location, catalogers rarely provide location information related to the content of the intellectual product. Entity extraction services can find location information in free text contents, such as abstracts, and even provide the appropriate coordinates for the identified places, thus enabling geo‐referenced browsing and searching of metadata. Libraries should consider multiple strategies for delivering these data, to maximize its utility for end users. Just‐in‐time information retrieval is rarely used in library systems, but is an essential technique for mobile location‐based information services.

The paper describes several distinct ways in which location‐based information services can be delivered to end users. It also examines techniques for enhancing bibliographic metadata with location information.