Applying Geographic Information Retrieval — An Experience Report on Developing Local Search for a Developing Country

Abstract

This article reports on the efforts to establish a research project on a geospatial search engine for the Latin American country of Honduras during the author’s research stay at a local university. Honduras is an interesting example of the challenges for information and knowledge management in developing countries as it combines many of the issues that are otherwise encountered more isolated or with less impact. These include low Web coverage in a low-resource country with limited Web infrastructure, and generally, work in challenging circumstances. The specific focus on geospatial information uncovers further issues that need to be addressed, such as informal addressing schemes or landmark-oriented location references, broad or incorrect locations for places, or insufficient ground truth in databases. While the tangible results of the project stay behind the original goals, several interesting results were achieved, which are condensed here as an experience report.