The proliferation of mapping technologies has sparked much attention and debate on the ethical conduct in the use of geographic information systems (GIS) (Onsrud 1995; Crampton 1995; Stewart, Cho, and Clark, 1997; Crampton 2003; Armstrong and Ruggles, 2005). As more map and geography libraries are maintaining geospatial datasets for the university research community, ethical standards of conduct in the use and handling of data become an increasingly important component of data archiving, cataloguing, and distribution. In a recent guest editorial in this journal's theme volume on "Geographic Opportunities in Medicine," I discussed how academic map and geography libraries can act as "enablers" to distribute geographic databases and resources to a wider, nontraditional, and nonacademic audience of health care delivery and service providers (Blatt, 2011). In areas of geography where personal data on individuals are often used (such as medical geography, geodemography, and planning), it is important for map and geography librarians to be aware of ethics and privacy issues in the archiving, cataloguing, and distribution of geospatial datasets containing personal and identifiable information.
展开▼
