NDSA:Geospatial
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Scope
The Geospatial Content Team is interested in exploring challenges and solutions to the long-term preservation, stewardship and accessibility of digital mapping information.
Team Facilitators
- Brett Abrams
Team Members
Regular listserv coming soon! In the meantime...
The NDSA Content WG Geospatial Subgroup maintains a Google Group to facilitate electronic communication and to track members: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/ndsa-geospatial-subgroup
We also maintain a spreadsheet of participants with contact information, but this is updated less frequently.
Draft Definition of At-Risk Geospatial Content
The geospatial content group has defined at-risk data as that which they take in, collect and/or maintain based on an established collecting policy, schedule, or agreed upon appraisal decisions, recognizing overlap between federal, state and local government
We define "data at risk" in this context as scientific data which are not in a format that permits full electronic access to the information which they contain. Such data may be inherently non-digital (e.g. handwritten or photographic), on near-obsolete digital media (such as magnetic tapes) or insufficiently described (lacking meta-data). Some born-digital data can also be considered "at risk" if they cannot be ingested into managed databases because they lack adequate formatting or metadata. Data which are regarded as unuseable tend to be regarded as useless, and then risk being destroyed. Most of the non-electronic data in question pre-date the digital era, and where they complement more modern ones by offering a much longer time-base they are essential, sometimes vital, for studies of long-term trends
Current Activities
Higher Priority:
- Industry Outreach: Archives and Libraries act in conjunction with geospatial users in government to meet with ESRI and discuss need for published or open formats.
- Appraisal: Consider effort toward appraisal: particularly what kind of data needs to be preserved (raw, intermediate, or final stage, all, some) (much of this being addressed by FGDC Users/Historical Data Working Group: )
- Spatial Data Infrastructure: Understanding the state GIS Clearinghouse relationship with local data providers and details regarding the data transfer between the two:
(a) acquisition of data (by the clearinghouse) on specific schedules; (b) data sharing agreements between the two entities; (c) definition of framework layers and those preserved vs. not preserved (appraisal process) in an eventual archive; (d) metadata and minimum documentation required by both clearinghouse and archive
- Proprietary vs. open formats. Discuss the challenges and opportunities with dealing with different formats. Prepare case studies on format issues. Discuss "emerging" "steady" and "waning" formats. (Reference blog post:
- Rights and Access: Copyright and other issues surrounding 'Access Rights' to Geospatial
Data: (a) copyright, licensing and legal implications of language such as indemnification/hold harmless clauses in data distribution agreements; (b) administrative metadata for dealing with access rights (c) Costs/fees for obtaining local public geospatial data and implications for archiving (i.e. continually purchase new versions based on retention schedule?)
- File formats, naming conventions and best practices: (a) Export feature classes out of geodatabases and archive as shapefiles?; (b) re-name files for archiving purposes, but retain link (via database?) back to original file from original data producer?
- GeoMAPP did a ton of work in this area and we are sifting through all of that documentation now...but it might be interesting to hear about other's workflows.
Metadata: ISO standards, preservation standards, preservation-based metadata formats
Lower priority:
- Generate effort to find a location for geospatial data that a state or other kinds of archives cannot afford to maintain.
Meetings
Next meeting is schedule for:
Wednesday August 22 at 11:00 a.m. EASTERN.
Meeting Minutes
No call held in July 2012
No call held in March 2012
Potential Future Meeting Topics
- Archives & Libraries need to meet with industry to discuss need for published or open formats
- Find location for geospatial data an entity desires to purge (see CEOS Purge Alert system at http://wgiss.ceos.org/purgealert/)
- Appraisal - what data needs to be preserved (we all have thoughts on this topic)
- Understanding state GIS Clearinghouse relationship w/local providers and transfers
- Electronic records management
- Archiving GIS data/metadata
- FGDC to ISO 19115 NAP impacts
- Storage & Access Infrastructure
- USGS experience with the NARA Affiliated Archives/Affiliated Relationship Program
- NARA Electronics Records Archive (ERA) and geospatial records