Meetings

 

We have been compiling information from presentations and discussions that can later be reviewed and integrated into our work. In addition to overviews of our meetings, many of the guests' presentations are attached.

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In March of 2005 members of professional and academic communities were invited to
participate in the NGDA 2005 Data Providers Workshop. The input of these individuals
served as invaluable resources as the breadth of data provider issues was revealed.

Sharing the nature and experiences of their work with geospatial data, and allowing an open
forum for questions and discussion, provided critical affirmation of much of our
understanding as we push forward.

The content, additionally, alerted us to potential stumbling blocks in pursuit of the
development of a digital archive.

In this summary our expectations and questions are reflected as well as some of the pertinent
responses to them. As the necessary growth of this field is occurring at a highly rapid rate our
presenters were asked to encapsulate a vast array of experiences into relatively brief
presentations. Consequently, every contributed idea, concept, incident, and interaction
cannot be echoed here.

Finally, the wisdom, wit, commitment, and sacrifices shared by each of the guests can only be
reflected through our thanks and hopes that this assembly brought a measure of value akin to
that which we received.

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Collections Workshop
September 2005
Palo Alto, Ca

 

NGDA held a day and a half workshop at Stanford University on September 14th and 15th,
2005 to determine and discuss the major collections issues for building an archive of digital geospatial data.

Representation was provided from many agencies and institutions that bear responsibility for
creating, maintaining, and/or enabling access to a diverse range of geospatial data. A broad
array of participants from universities, government agencies, state archives, and commercial
firms attended.

These guests were sought because of their expertise and interest in handling materials of a
related nature. Incorporating their input into the work of the NGDA is considered vital to not only
building a robust archive, but in the creation of a strong collection development policy.
The contributions of our guests provided help toward achieving these overall goals.

By 2006 we have created repository environments designed to ingest, persistently store,
and access materials. We had begun construction on a geospatial format registry to
help define and explain the geospatial formats being archived. We established a collection development policy that will govern collaborative selection decisions. Finally, we were
completing the creation of a content provider agreement to governs the rights for, and responsibilities of, those who seek to deposit data into the NGDA and the archive's
content custodians. An external group of colleagues was convened to help us look into the
short-term future for guidance on policies and governance structures as we begin to
increase the network of repositories archiving geospatial data. We began discussion the following broad topics:

• How do we attract others into the network? What do we expect repository partners
  to be able to do? Should there be levels of participation? What are the guidelines
  that should be created for those wanting to simply deposit data rather than be a
  node?

• What alliances should we try to form with: existing geospatial networks,
  government agencies (federal and state), commercial companies, individuals, etc.?

• Do we need a long-term governance structure? What are viable alternatives to that?

The attached notes provide much of the input from our guests stemming from these
questions