@article {Sieber:2007-01-31T00:00:00:1523-0406:47, author = "Sieber, Renée E.", title = "Spatial Data Access by the Grassroots", journal = "Cartography and Geographic Information Science", volume = "34", number = "1", year = "2007-01-31T00:00:00", abstract = "This paper characterizes efforts by nonprofit organizations to access spatial data developed by government agencies. It is based on research conducted in California, a U.S. state that is positioned at the forefront of nonprofit usage of GIS. The research, conducted over a ten-year period, followed six best practices case studies of small conservation and environmental organizations using GIS. Case study research is analyzed in a framework developed from the literature on public participation GIS and inter-organizational GIS. The research revealed that access was structured by technical details, such as adjusting agencies' thematic categories, fluctuations in foundation funding and other organizational/political issues, and inter-organizational linkages in the emergent spatial data intermediary sector. Overall, access was conditioned by the legal and economic regimes in which the cases conducted their advocacy. Ultimately, access to data profoundly shaped GIS applications and nonprofit activities, occasionally shifting or even precluding activism, provoking creative mechanisms to obtain data, or inducing innovative usage of available data.", pages = "47-62", url = "http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cagis/cagis/2007/00000034/00000001/art00004", doi = "doi:10.1559/152304007780279087" }