Welcome! This is the next in the ongoing series of special issues of JASIS dealing with timely, in-depth, or novel topics in information science. This issue presents articles selected to illustrate some of the topics and themes of research involving spatial information. The articles in this issue make it clear that spatial information is a very wide-ranging domain indeed. Information scientists have not been actively involved in research in this area in the past. It is my hope that this special issue will bring the needs and challenges of spatial information to the attention of the information science community. I also hope that you will find some aspect of spatial information presented in this special issue worthy of your personal interest. I also hope it will motivate you to broaden your interests and your work to include spatial information issues.
Many user groups including researchers, decisionmakers, and casual users employ spatial data for many varied purposes. Local, state, national, and global scales provide the scope for collecting spatial data. Examples of such use include spatial data used by biologists to describe vegetation patterns, by meteorologists to understand precipitation patterns, by environmentalists to promote protection of endangered species, and by newlyweds to navigate through their honeymoon excursion and to select land far from the flood plain on which to build their dream home.
Estimates suggest that 80% of all data are spatial in nature (Antenucci, 1989). Traditionally, producers summarize and present spatial data to users with paper maps. However, as computers and global networks become more pervasive, there is an increasing tendency to archive and distribute spatial data sets in digital form rather than in hard copy. The 1990 United States Census Summary Files (STF-X) and related census street-level graphic files (TIGER) represent just one significant example.