ABSTRACT
One of the primary expenditures of implementing a Geographical Information System occurs in the data collection and base mapping stages (Korte, 1996). The data required by a particular individual or organisation could in fact already exist somewhere; the problem is trying to find it. With the advent of client/server communications, the Internet has become a powerful tool to transfer large amounts of information within the GIS user community. No other technology this decade has had such a profound impact on the computer and software industry of which GIS is a part.
