Open Geospatial Data: A comparison of data cultures in local government and the role of academic libraries

County and municipal governments are primary creators of foundational geospatial data, including essential layers such as parcels, road centerlines, address points, land use, and elevation. This data is aggregated into regionalized layers that make up state and national frameworks, and it is sought after by researchers for analysis and by cartographers to serve as base map layers. Despite the importance of these layers, policies about whether this data is free and open to the public varies from place to place. In most areas of the United States, counties and municipalities are not required to comply with federal rules or state initiatives for open data. As a result, some regions offer hundreds of open data layers to the public, while their neighbors may have zero, preferring to restrict the data due to privacy, economic, or accuracy concerns. The state of Wisconsin recently passed legislation requiring that certain foundational geospatial data created by counties must be made available to the public. By contrast, its neighboring state of Minnesota uses a voluntary approach that allows counties to choose for themselves if their geospatial data will be free and open. This paper compares the implications and outcomes of these diverging data cultures. We also advocate for the role that academic libraries can play to support the culture of practices around collection, documentation, and discoverability of local data, pointing to the Big Ten Academic Alliance Geoportal and GeoData@Wisconsin as examples.