Abstract

Safe to Save? Archive Options for Geodatabases
Track: Spatial Data Infrastructure
Authors: Jefferson Essic

Members of the Geospatial Mulitstate Archive and Preservation Partnership (GeoMAPP) have been engaged for the past three years in building state GIS data archives and developing recommendations for future archivists. One particular focus of study has been the suitability of Personal and File Geodatabases for long term data access and preservation, from which numerous questions have arisen, including: Will software in the future be able to read today's geodatabases? In preparation for archiving, should geodatabases be exported to an open format (e.g. xml, gml) or other common format such as shapefile? Further, should geodatabases be regularly updated to each new geodatabase version, or left unchanged? This presentation will build upon previous work presented at the 2009 ESRI-UC (http://tinyurl.com/geomapp-esri09) and will give our test results using ArcGIS version 10, as well as other thoughts and recommended best practices for archiving geospatial data.