ABSTRACT
Geographic information occurs in many different guises and has widely varying uses, large numbers of data collectors and information providers and millions of ultimate end users, from the sophisticated subject specialist to the layperson looking for useful holiday information or better understanding of where his or her local tax money is being spent. It is not the purpose of this paper to examine the numerous fields of endeavour in which GI plays an important role. Rather, this chapter examines the problems that face producers of information products in their attempts to combine GI with other types of information to create a product for various commercial purposes, ranging from special consultancy service providers through to tourism products destined for bookshop shelves. The chapter looks at data integration problems from both market related and technical viewpoints.
