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Future Directions for Geolibraries. Michael F. Goodchild University of California Santa Barbara. Geolibrary. A library that is searchable by geographic location "What have you got about there ?" impossible in the physical library space is continuous and multidimensional
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Future Directions for Geolibraries Michael F. Goodchild University of California Santa Barbara
Geolibrary • A library that is searchable by geographic location • "What have you got about there?" • impossible in the physical library • space is continuous and multidimensional • enabled in the digital world
From the UCSB Map and Imagery Laboratory to the Alexandria Digital Library • NSF funding 1994-2004 • Universal access • www.alexandria.ucsb.edu • Searchable catalog • a subset of FGDC • MARC compliant • approaching 3 million records • Downloadable objects • Map, coordinate, and gazetteer interfaces
1994-1999 • Proliferation of warehouses, geospatial data libraries, clearinghouses • user interfaces, catalogs • How to know where to look? • the knowledge of the SAP • by data type • DOQs, DEMs, DLGs, DRGs • by regional emphasis • by thematic emphasis • the collection-level metadata problem • How to achieve interoperability?
Geoportals: 2000-2005 • A single point of access • Geography Network • Geospatial One-Stop • Offering both data and services • "Live data" • using OGC standards • Providers "publish" to the site • Automated metadata harvesting • from collaborating sites • GOS at 76,000 data sets in 1/05
There Will Always Be More Than One Shop • Competition • between agencies, levels of government, public and private sectors • Segmentation • not all providers of geospatial information are content to be part of a single whole • Disciplines • not all disciplines see the geospatial content of data sets as their primary characteristic • Jurisdictions • GOS is national
CLM revisited • Regional partitions • a data set is most likely to be found on a server located within the region • Thematic partitions • Data type and format partitions • Level-of-government partitions • a data set is most likely to be found on a server maintained by an agency whose footprint most closely matches that of the data set
Functions • The library model • search and retrieval of information objects • legacy granularity • OGC standards support subset but not superset • gatekeeper • Towards an information model • answers to queries • independent of the source • which is the world's highest capital city?
Geolibraries as GIS • Focus on queries rather than data acquisition • Fully functional servers • Accurately georeferenced
The future of geolibraries • Mixed models • libraries serving information objects • information sources responding to queries • The CLM problem • SAPs have an assured future • Multiple sources will not agree • conflation • "A person with one watch always knows what time it is; a person with two is always uncertain"