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The authors provide a brief history of the firm now called East View Information Services. From its beginning in 1989 as a sole-proprietorship company, it has grown from microfilming the back file of a single Soviet journal to being a subscription agent, book vendor, database aggregator, provider of maps and other geospatial information, and more—from Slavic countries, East Asia, the Middle East, and elsewhere.

In November, 2004 the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) announced its intention to withdraw essentially all of its aeronautical chart and related digital data publications from public distribution. Citing multiple concerns (potential use by terrorists, potential threats to the integrity of its own data, and commercial/copyright issues), NGA's proposed withdrawal would have removed huge volumes of traditionally open data from public access and established ominous precedents in the post-9/11 environment. Map libraries of all kinds would have been affected correspondingly. The paper seeks to explore each stated rationale by NGA, and also seeks to explain all NGA product series, including some rather arcane digital products, that were at stake for withdrawal.

Access to global geospatial data, and the way these data are being used, has changed dramatically in the past decade. This is true for a variety of reasons, many of them not readily apparent. This article will explore some of the essential changes in this sphere since the early 1990s, as seen from the perspective of a commercial distributor and service bureau involved with international maps and related data.