Sometimes the more things change, the more they seem to stay the same as the saying goes. This issue of the Journal of Map & Geography Libraries includes four articles that each highlight the age-old challenges of improving discovery, access, documentation, and use of spatial information, but each does so in contemporary, innovative, and/or important ways. The articles discuss new technologies like spatial data infrastructures, geoportals, accessible coding languages for manipulating spatial data, and documentation techniques—all of which enhance access to and use of spatial information. The articles also discuss the many challenges of organizing cumbersome collections, getting people to share data, learning new professional skills, and combining disparate documentation schemas. Technology is amazing and can help us in our work in many ways, and yet it will never solve all of our problems for us, and so the challenges continue. In the first article of this issue, authors Atumane and Cabral share the results of a survey of institutions in Mozambique that could contribute to a countrywide spatial data infrastructure (SDI). SDIs in Africa are becoming more common as is documented elsewhere in this journal (see Mwange et al. Volume 50, issue 360; https://doi.org/10.1080/00396265. 2016.1259720), but they are nonetheless a major challenge to initiate for both technical as well as social and political reasons. The authors wisely start with a survey of legal frameworks and the willingness and readiness of each potential government agency participant to contribute to an SDI that at its core would contain 15 thematic datasets served openly to Mozambique and the world. The authors conclude that the government agencies surveyed are in a good position to contribute in the near future and that furthermore, there are non-government entities that could also contribute to this important spatial data resource. However, the legal framework and political will to establish an SDI typically comes first from a central governing body. Speaking from personal experience, it can be a

中文翻译：

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变化越多，它们保持不变的越多

有时，变化越多，似乎与俗语越一致。本期《地图与地理图书馆杂志》包含四篇文章，每篇都强调了改进发现，访问，文档和空间信息使用方面的古老挑战，但是每篇文章都以当代，创新和/或重要的方式做到了。本文讨论了新技术，例如空间数据基础结构，地理门户，用于处理空间数据的可访问编码语言以及文档技术，所有这些技术都可以增强对空间信息的访问和使用。文章还讨论了组织繁琐的馆藏，使人们共享数据，学习新的专业技能以及组合不同的文档架构所面临的诸多挑战。技术是惊人的，可以在很多方面帮助我们开展工作，但是它永远不会为我们解决所有问题，因此挑战仍在继续。在本期第一篇文章中，作者Atumane和Cabral分享了对莫桑比克各机构的调查结果，这些调查可能有助于全国范围的空间数据基础设施（SDI）。正如本刊其他地方所记录的那样，非洲的SDI越来越普遍（请参阅Mwange等人，第50卷，第360期； https：//doi.org/10.1080/00396265。2016.1259720），但它们仍然是启动SDI的主要挑战出于技术以及社会和政治原因。作者明智地从法律框架调查以及每个潜在的政府机构参与者为SDI做出贡献的意愿和意愿入手，SDI的核心将包含向莫桑比克和全世界公开提供的15个主题数据集。作者得出的结论是，接受调查的政府机构很可能在不久的将来做出贡献，此外，还有一些非政府实体也可以为这一重要的空间数据资源做出贡献。但是，建立SDI的法律框架和政治意愿通常首先来自中央管理机构。从个人经验来看，这可能是一个