In Australia this is just beginning, but virtually all of the people doing our course have a job before they graduate. The shortage of Australians with GIS skills is part of the great Information Technology Shortage of 300,000 persons currently facing the nation. I mention this because GIS, or SIS as it is sometimes known, utilises fundamental skills which I believe are enhanced and developed through educational material like the Heinemann Atlas package. Certainly GIS uses rapidly advancing computer based technology and methodology. However, that technology and methodology is useless unless it is driven by people who understand location and locational relationships.
People have to ask the appropriate questions to which the technology and methodology are applied.
Moreover, the interpretation of the output of the analysis relies upon having the fundamental geographical training to which products like this atlas make an important contribution. I say this because in some quarters atlases and geography itself have been perceived sometimes as being out of fashion. They have been associated with rote learning of boring lists of capes and bays. Firstly it is wrong because a knowledge of location is of fundamental importance to life in the contemporary world. Secondly it is wrong because the modern atlas as typified in the Heinemann package utilises modern technology and methodologies to present this material in interactive, effective, and above all exciting ways.