The Association for Geographic Information (AGI)
Top of the list, but then we are biased! The AGI emerged out of the ashes of the Government's response to the Chorley Committee's recommendations, and is the national coordination body for GIS in the UK. It is worth looking specifically at the AGI GIS Dictionary, maintained by the Geography Department in the University of Edinburgh, which holds just less than 1,000 terms and includes about 50 explanatory diagrams. Also worth a look is its Online Resources for GIS which holds links to many publicly accessible GIS online resources. An emerging area of activity which is to be welcomed is the provision of information by the AGI for schools (see AGI - GIS for Schools).
You should also look at the site of the European Umbrella Organisation for GIS (EUROGI), of which the AGI was a founding member. This holds links to many useful information resources on GIS and provides details of all the major research projects which are being carried out under its auspices.
The International Standards Committee's ISO/TC 211 Working Parties
Actively sponsored by the British Standards Institute, a number of Working Parties with wide international memberships are helping to devise international standards for geographic data.
Ordnance Survey's Home Pages provide a vaste amount of information in relation to the history, current activities, and products available from the Ordnance Survey. All the OS's Information Papers (previously only made available to members of its official Liasion Committees) are now obtainable on-line. Of particular value is the Ordnance Survey 's SINES Data-base which offers a Spatial Information Enquiry Service enabling you to query where information on a particular topic is held (searching by 'keyword' and 'organisation', though it could do with being a bit less cumbersome!).
Land & Property Gazeteers and BS7666
Those of you in Local Government who are currently implementing GIS, will know that you can't get far without having to sort out your Land and Property Gazetteer and to examine the British Standard BS7666 ('Spatial Data Sets for Geographic Referencing'). Click on the heading above to look at the latest state of play on Land and Property Gazetteers within local authorities (hosted on London Borough of Brent's site). The information is compiled from a survey conducted by the Local Government Management Board and you should also visit their site regularly for the latest information on the setting up of the Land and Gazetteer User Group and other related initiatives. For a brief introduction to BS7666 look at the Peter Thorpe Consulting pages on PlanWeb.
GIS Pointers from the University of Edinburgh
A good site giving links to many other relevant sources of GIS information.
Provides on-line access to 'GIS World' and to 'Business Geographics'. Also includes the feature articles from Mapping Awareness and various other GIS publications.
The Great GIS Net Sites Index (from HDM in USA)
Typically American, this site brags that it is the largest collection of GIS links in the world, covering. about 550 sites. Despite its USA bias this is a very useful source of information.
Look at this for information about the United Nations Environment Programme's Global Resource Information Database. In particular look at the Baltic GIS Database which is the most developed.
And for a further selection of interesting GIS sites (with thanks to David Green from University of Aberdeen who has reviewed them for 'Mapping Awareness' - publication dates given in brackets) see:
