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Track: Federal Systems
Dan Nelson
Illinois State Geological Survey
615 East Peabody Drive
Champaign, IL 61820
Telephone: 217-244-2513
Fax: 217-333-2830
E-mail: nelson@muck.isgs.uiuc.edu
Rob Krumm, Sally Denhart, Sheena Beaverson
ArcInfo Solutions to Metadata Problems: Building a Solid NDSI Clearinghouse Node on a Shifting Metadata Landscape
For institutions with a strong commitment to ArcInfo GIS, the last year has presented many challenges in establishing an organizational metadata policy and implementing a National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) Clearinghouse Node. Notably, both the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM) and the evolution of Esri supported metadata capture techniques have been in flux during this time. With these uncertainties, developing a uniform and integrated program for metadata development and distribution required a strategy to take advantage of existing tools (such as document.aml) while remaining flexible enough to incorporate future technologies and a changing metadata framework. These issues were central to the 1996-97 Illinois NSDI Clearinghouse Node project, a multiagency effort led by the Illinois State Geological Survey (ISGS) and funded under the FGDC's 1996 Competitive Cooperative Agreements Program (CCAP). Primary project goals were to adopt
a standardized format for metadata, contribute metadata to the node, and offer the results as a model for other organizations in Illinois. These initial efforts should provide a solid foundation to promote a system of clearinghouse nodes connecting the digital spatial data providers and users of Illinois with each other and the world. Underlying the project goals, however, are the specific strategies and techniques that must remain flexible in order to ensure a viable product in the future. This paper focuses on these issues and emphasizes metadata methods applicable to ArcInfo users. How much staff training should be provided now if significant retraining is anticipated in the near future? Should metadata collection be built around a specific collection tool? How does document.aml map to the FGDC metadata standard? How will it map to a revised metadata standard? How can the situation of having several metadata files for one dataset be avoided? Finally, is there a good way to make use of the
advantages of document.aml, without being locked in to the disadvantages? The approaches to these questions and the lessons learned will be presented.
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