Collection Development Policies for Digital Maps and Geospatial Information Princeton University Library NGDA Collections Workshop Stanford University September 14 Tsering Wangyal Shawa GIS Librarian, Princeton University

Challenges of formulating a collection development policy Creating a policy of which geographic data coverage, scales, resolutions, and file formats we collect depends on curriculum and research activities in the university. Our student and faculty research interests spread all over the world and many need to use geographic data. Creating a collection development that reflects their research needs is very challenging.

Challenges of formulating a collection development policy Before the explosion of digital maps, geospatial data and commercial satellite images on the market, creating a collection development policy was a bit simpler, especially if you were dealing with paper maps. Paper maps are tangible and easy to evaluate visually, unlike digital data. Digital data comes in different formats and need software and hardware to view them. The wealth of geospatial data for sale or available on the Internet has created different expectations from our users. Our patrons expect all data and information to be available to them on their desktops, especially after the introduction of free Google Earth Internet resources to visualized geographic information.

Challenges of formulating a collection development policy The cost of purchasing digital data varies from country to country. One thing is certain: purchasing digital data is not only expensive but also difficult, especially purchasing data outside the United States. Most of the maps, geospatial data, remote sensed images, and location-based data are collected and sold by governments. Many countries consider large-scale or high-resolution maps, images or geospatial data as national assets, and consider them classified information. Therefore it is difficult to acquire these data. Communicating, negotiating and understanding a license agreement with foreign venders is not only challenging but also time- consuming. Finding the right set of data is very difficult. Evaluating and testing data is time-consuming and challenging. Updating data is very costly. Creating a policy of what to collect and what not to collect is also difficult.

Policy of GIS data collection To formulate a good policy for building a collection of GIS data in the fast-evolving geospatial world, we need to develop a strategy that can give us general guidelines to build our collection. GIS data consist of two components: geography or geometry or boundary file and attribute data. GIS data could be divided into two common categories; (a) “core-data”, “base-data” or “reference-data” and (b) “theme-specific data” or “application- specific data”. GIS data also could be divided into types of data models, scale and resolution.

Policy of GIS data collection Core-data, base-data, or reference-data are GIS data that are needed by most GIS users to do research and create their own data. Examples of core-data are administrative units, transportation networks, hydrography, elevation, orthoimagery, official geographic names (gazetteer), cadastral data, and geodetic control. Examples of thematic data are landuse/ landcover, flood zones, geology/geophysics, climate, soils, social, economic and cultural data, etc.

Policy of GIS data collection At this stage, our goal is to collect administrative units, transportation networks, hydrography, elevation, and gazetteer data at the research level. This means that we will try to collect the above core-data at the best possible scale and resolution that are available on the market and that we can afford to purchase. The coverage area is at the world level. The objective of collecting core-data at the research level is that our students and faculty members can do location-based research at the regional or country or local level in any part of the world.

Policy of GIS data collection At the same time we will also collect other core and theme- specific data of the world such as othoimagery, landuse/landcover, soils, geology, etc. at a smaller scale and lower resolution. We hope that these data will help our students and faculty members do location-based research at the regional level or the country level. In addition, we will build collections of large scale and high resolution geospatial data of cities around the world that are studied by our patrons. Another policy of collection development is that if a published map is available as a good scanned map, then I will buy the digital rather than the hard copy map. This is done to solve physical space limitation for storing hard copy maps, and for the flexibility digital maps provide.

Policy of GIS data collection Early on we decided not to purchase digital atlases and maps that are bundled with software and cannot be viewed independently without the bundled software, and the user cannot extract or convert data or images from the software into other file formats. With the above policy in mind, our library is developing a rich collection of digital map and geospatial data to address the ever-growing demand for geographic data.

Digital data archiving policy We don’t have a written policy on how to archive digital geographic data. Right now, all our scanned maps and aerial photographs are saved in TIFF files and TIFF files are considered as archive copies. All the TIFF files are stored on hard drive rather than on DVD or CD-ROM. We encode the TIFF files later using Mapping Science’s GeoJP2 software into JPEG2000 file with 10:1 compression ratio and make them accessible online. I am also looking into converting all the scanned materials into lossless JP2 file and use the JP2 file as an archive copy. I plan to put all of our geospatial data and digital scanned maps that are on DVD or on CD-ROM on hard drive. Hard drive space is becoming cheaper every year and the data stored on hard drive are easy to migrate from one OS to another. They will be backed up on a regular basis. I am also looking into the GML option of archiving vector data.

How we build our collections Acquire data through FDLP Acquire data donated by students and faculty members when their projects are finished Acquire data from Federal, State, Local, and Non- government organizations Acquire data through cooperative works Purchase data using our GIS data funds

Thank you for you attention Any Questions? Tsering Wangyal Shawa (609)