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This paper aims to provide an introduction to core geographic information systems (GIS) concepts, prominent GIS software, the role of libraries in providing GIS services and support and resources for professional library staff to increase GIS knowledge and skills to fulfill the mission of serving the information needs of library patrons.

This paper provides an overview of GISs core concepts and terminologies, Library GIS services and resources for library staff development.

As GISs are being used by researchers in an ever-growing number of disciplines, librarians must increase their proficiency with geospatial technologies.

While GISs have been used by certain researcher populations for some time, the increased use of such geospatial technologies creates a need for librarians who possess the skills and knowledge to assist patrons with their GIS needs. This paper introduces professional library staff to important GIS concepts, potential GIS services and resources to increase library staff’s competence with GISs.

This research underlines the usefulness of Civil Rights Geographic Information Systems (CR-GIS) for understanding the social struggles and assessing the critical needs of the disempowered population of Alabama’s “Black Belt.” The social struggles have been persistent for decades in the Southern states, particularly in Alabama. Researchers have recognized the political and historical root causes and implications for these social struggles. The geographic region of Alabama’s Black Belt is significant because it became the epicenter of the Civil Rights struggle and still represents the vestiges of the social policy known as “Jim Crow.”

Although GIS has a great potential to explore social and political struggles, currently, it is not profoundly associated with Civil Rights studies. This research employs CR-GIS to illustrate the impact of the disfranchisement caused by biased geopolitics in three selected cases/issues: (1) gerrymandering and voting rights, (2) transportation, and (3) poverty in the State of Alabama. While there has been some progress in overcoming the social struggles in the Black Belt, there is a need for qualitative and quantitative analyses to understand persistent social, economic, and Civil Rights struggles in the region. GIS could be a valuable tool to understand and explore the social struggles in the disempowered communities of the “Black Belt” in Alabama. By incorporating the existing information and conducting ground truth studies, this research will lay the basic foundation for extended research by creating a policy template for empowering the disempowered for better social, economic, and political integration in the “Black Belt region.”

An expanded perspective on information system design paradigms reveals that information systems (IS) have a generative capacity that enables reframing and recasting reality based upon alternative values. By synthesizing research in sustainable value, generative capacity, and community-based geographic information systems (GIS), we propose that IS can empower communities to create community sustainable value as they face increasing environmental and growth challenges. This surfaces the opportunity for the design and implementation of GIS to reduce information asymmetry, empower communities, and provide a history of decision-making, thereby enabling monitoring of the components of community sustainable value. Community members may incorporate local data, present alternative development/conservation scenarios, and gain a voice in the planning process. As Web-enabled GIS and low-cost analytic systems become accessible, the system design process itself represents an opportunity for situated social action in the formation of community sustainable values. Synthesizing these perspectives, we put forward the view that GIS development and use at a community level is a potentially constructive social process of value formation that can enable communities to envision their own futures.

This chapter discusses the potential role of geographic information systems (GIS) for infection control within the hospital system. The chapter provides a brief overview of the role of GIS in public health and reviews current work applying these methods to the hospital setting. Finally, it outlines the potential opportunities and challenges for adapting GIS for use in the hospital setting for infection prevention. A targeted literature review is used to illustrate current use of GIS in the hospital setting. The discussion of complexity was compiled using the nonadoption, abandonment, scale-up, spread, and sustainability (NASSS) framework. Challenges and opportunities were then extracted from this exercise by the authors. There are multiple challenges to implementation of a Hospital GIS for infection prevention, mainly involving the domains of technology, organization, and adaptation. Use of a transdisciplinary approach can address many of these challenges. More research, specifically prospective, reproducible clinical trials, needs to be done to better assess the potential impact and effectiveness of a Hospital GIS in real-world settings. This chapter highlights a powerful but rarely used tool for infection prevention within the hospital. Given the importance of reducing hospital-acquired infection rates, it is vital to identify relevant methods from other fields that could be translated into the field of hospital epidemiology.

The purpose of this study is to describe the role of geographical information system (GIS) in public libraries. The study shed light on various functions of GIS in the public library scenario. It further elaborates on the scope of GIS, its functions and the multiple challenges faced by library staff in implementation in public library.

A qualitative study was conducted by exploring articles published in top databases like Elsevier, Taylor and Francis, SpringerLink, Google Scholar, etc. The study reveals that GIS has been part of multiple businesses for the past few years, and its role is expanding at an alarming rate in public libraries for the past 10 years.

The study reveals that GIS deals with the geospatial characteristics of the data set, and the public library’s prime role is to visualize large quantities of disparate data in one data set.

The study will further wider the scope of the GIS in public library scenario. Experts in GIS and library field will get an extensive information and optimum benefits by reading this paper.