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Abstract
This paper examines some of the key events which have influenced the development of Geographical Information Systems in Scotland, together with the contribution which Scotland has made to the international scene. It reviews local developments and applications, the people who brought these about and links them to key technological milestones on the international stage. The paper also examines issues of contemporary concern, putting these in the context of the GI Strategy for Scotland published by the Scottish Government in 2005. The paper considers the importance of a definitive place-name gazetteer and the need for a place-name authority to create and maintain this as key to the promotion of textual geographical information. Also addressed is the loss of cartography as an academic discipline and increasingly as a profession, together with the tendency to create data silos, to which a solution is proposed.
Notes
4Multimap was founded in 1996, while streetmap.co.uk was created by BTex Ltd. and appeared in 1997.
5Application Programmer Interface
12Examples include The Imperial Gazetteer of Scotland by Rev John Marius Wilson (1854–57) and The Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland by Francis Hindes Groome (three editions; 1882–85, 1892–96 and 1903).
14Remarkably, since 1919 the United Kingdom government has supported a UK Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use (PCGN), a body which regularises the British usage of foreign place-names, but with a remit specifically excluding place-names in the United Kingdom and Antarctica.
16After English soap-baron William Hesketh Lever (1st Viscount Leverhulme of the Western Isles) who had brought industry and employment to the area.