Letter from the Editor

Pervasive GIS Is What’s Next

Making location intelligence more universally available—a promise made just six short years ago at the Esri User Conference—is being realized through the widespread adoption of Web GIS. The Web GIS pattern leverages web services that make exponentially growing data streams readily accessible for visualization and analysis.

By empowering non-GIS staff, Web GIS enables both GIS professionals and non-GIS knowledge workers in organizations to get more meaningful work done. It relieves GIS professionals from previous roles as data gatekeepers and on-call mapmakers so they can engage in analytical activities that provide greater value to their organizations.

The power of data integration and computational geography can be available to every-one in the organization. Through converting massive amounts of data into actionable information, web maps are becoming a kind of language that supports problem solving.

Using apps, this work can be shared and taken everywhere: referenced and updated in the field, presented in the boardroom, and disseminated on the web. The Web GIS pattern brings together web maps, web apps, hubs, location analytics, and other technologies that improve understanding, collaboration, and communication.

Since their introduction six years ago, Esri Story Maps apps have become a communication medium that is used to tell the stories of individuals, organizations, communities, events, and processes. The more than 600,000 story maps that have been published have been viewed millions of times.

The Special Section in this issue highlights how story maps are used to promote the unique characteristics of communities, present city council agenda items in context, and share the significance and beauty of collections maintained by the Library of Congress.

With Web GIS, location intelligence is easier to apply and more accessible so society can truly benefit from The Science of Where.

Monica Pratt
Editor