Definitions of Gazetteer

1. Definitions of Gazetteer • Concern about expanding beyond the index of names • Focus on instances • UN definition • names, variants, coordinates(lat/lon), feature type, administrative info, map info • Index in an atlas, published gazetteer • ISO211 • Directory of instances of a class or classes of real world phenomena containing some information about there locations • Name is only one instance of a identifier • Happens in one place only • Taxonomy of features type is not part of gazetteer

2. Use of Gazetteers: Applications • Geo-coding of input data, • Converting a text description to coordinates • Reviving legacy data • Geographic Information Retrieval • Finding names for coordinates • Finding locations for names • Part of larger information retrieval process • Learning about locations

3. Use of Gazetteers: Applications • List of official names • Catalog of variants • Thesauri of synonyms and related words • Controlled vocabulary and standardization • Spatial and Temporal relationships • Between places and variant names

4. Use of Gazetteers: Communities • Research institutions • Libraries • Museums • News organizations, Multiple names in different languages. Emergency crews and late breaking news • Scientific and Research institutions • Local and Federal Government • Emergency response • Public heath • Land management • Law enforcement • Educational • Postal agencies

5. Use of Gazetteers: Communities • General Public • Motorists • Utilities • Private sector • Transport services • Retail services • Non-Governmental Agencies • Environmental agencies • Red cross

6. Current services • Coordinates of a place name • Name for a set of coordinates • Retrieve names and variants • Retrieve feature type • Retrieve administrative membership • Retrieve instances of features and administrative structures

7. Future services • Clearinghouse of gazetteer • Other locator services and tools • Searchable meta-data • Retrieve complex hierarchies • By feature type • For multiple types • Retrieve stored instance hierarchy by type membership • Interoperability of distributed gazetteer • Machine readable interchange • Future services may not expand but the creative uses of these services will expand

8. Future Services • Tools for geo-coding • Interoperability and distributed with other gazetteers to expand name resolution • Resolution of imprecise names and regions • Interactive Map Server • Interactive tools for generating footprints for sources • Easy systems to add names to gazetteers • Hardware independent tools and services, • user friendly • Machine readable interface to gazetteer • Formats • Schema

9. Future Services • Information retrieval based on name and characteristic over the WWW (Geology of Bangladesh) • Retrieval agents that accept gazetteers names and locations • Search the web using geographic information, gazetteer data • Vizualization tools • GIS context • Information structures, (eg. trees) • Photos, images • Fuzzy names or locations • Geographic references by document

10. Future Services • Gazetteer servers • Official names • Time encoding • Meta-data about context and authenticity • Between gazetteer and other location services • Resolution of ambiguous names and locations • Name translation between multiple languages • Cross-lingual query capability – Start search in any language • Language transparency

11. Future Services • Non gazetteer related services • Other location names and services – postal codes, fips codes • Good temporal relationships and retrieval • When did this start becoming this name

12. Data gathering and sharing Issues & Requirements • Licensing mechanisms for data products • International restrictions • Data access issues • Privacy concerns • Security and law enforcement • Cultural restrictions • Educational issues • Spreading the word about gazetteers • Accuracy and Precision • of both names and coordinates

13. Data gathering and sharingIssues & Requirements • Promote international gazetteer construction • Standard terminology • Data exchange and protocols • High performance access to gazetteer data • Promote international use of nationally approved names • Create and accept standardization authorities • International exchange of name data • Use standards organizations • Authentication of data for gazetteer • Top down approach using international gazetteers • Bottom up, populating data from local sources and users

14. Research Agendaand Collaboration • Building the Geographic Names Service • Modeled on domain name services • How do the servers describe themselves? • Natural Language Resolution • Geo-coding and Geographic Information Retrieval • User interface and algorithms to support geo-coding • Interoperability protocols • Gazetteer data standards • Transport protocols • Like OGIS well known structures

15. Research Agenda and Collaboration • Book Collaboration • “Idiots guide”? • Fuzzy locations • Representing and Visualizing • System integration • GIS • Gazetteer services • Display and rendering services • Standards • Technical and administrative challenge implementing

16. Research Agenda and Collaboration • Common interface to the gazetteers • in workshop announcement • Filtering gazetteer • Ranking • Scale • Quality - Approved names vs Candidate names