Friday, September 16, 2011

Long-term Preservation for Spatial Data Infrastructures: a Metadata Framework and Geo-portal Implementation.

Long-term Preservation for Spatial Data Infrastructures: a Metadata Framework and Geo-portal Implementation. Arif Shaon, Andrew Woolf. D-Lib Magazine. September/October 2011.
Geospatial data is increasing, particularly with diverse environmental datasets. Long-term preservation of the data is not typically addressed, but it is very important for current and future use.  Sustained access to environmental data is becoming more important and more difficult because it is increasing so dramatically.
Without effective long-term preservation, the data face the risk of becoming unusable over time. This article looks at the requirements, particularly metadata, for preserving this data.  The authors have implemented a web-based portal prototype that demonstrates some functions of a preservation interface, such as data discovery using geospatial metadata, data downloading, metadata creation and validation.  There is more to be done in this area.

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