1. NCPMA Fall MeetingOctober 11, 2006 GIS Data Preservation: Partnership with Library of Congress Steve Morris North Carolina State University Libraries

2. 2 Today’s geospatial data as tomorrow’s cultural heritage Future uses of data are difficult to anticipate (as with Sanborn Maps).

3. 3 Temporal Data Supports Decision Making Land use change analysis Real Estate trend analysis Site selection (past uses?) Forecasting Parcel Boundary Changes 2001-2004 North Raleigh, NC

4. 4 Time series – Ortho imagery Vicinity of Raleigh-Durham International Airport 1993-2002

5. 5 Digital Preservation Points of Failure Data is not saved, or … can’t be found, or … media is obsolete, or … media is corrupt, or … format is obsolete, or … file is corrupt, or … meaning is lost Solutions: Migration Emulation Encapsulation XML

6. 6 Risks to Geospatial Data Producer focus on current data Data overwrite as common practice Future support of data formats in question No open, supported format for vector data Shift to web services-based access Data becoming more ephemeral Inadequate or nonexistent metadata Impedes discovery and use Increasing use of spatial databases for data management The whole is greater than the sum of the parts

7. 7 How would you describe your current geospatial archive? Last week’s set of nightly tape backups Several boxes of CD’s and DVD’s Bob’s hard drive A collection of files in our “GIS Folder” A stand-alone spatial database The data back-end for our internet mapping application An enterprise GIS

8. 8 NC Geospatial Data Archiving Project (NCGDAP) Partnership between university library (NCSU) and state agency (NCCGIA), with Library of Congress under the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) One of 8 initial NDIIPP partnerships Focus on state and local geospatial content in North Carolina (state demonstration) Tied to NC OneMap initiative, which provides for seamless access to data, metadata, and inventories Objective: engage existing state/federal geospatial data infrastructures in preservation Serve as catalyst for discussion within industry

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10. 10 Geospatial data types: Aerial imagery 85+ NC counties with orthophotos 1-5 flights per county 30-300 gb per flight

11. 11 Geospatial data types: Vector & tabular Economic, infrastructure, and ethnographic data

12. 12 Geospatial data types: Cartographic project files Counterpart to the map is not just the dataset but also models, symbolization, classification, annotation, etc.

13. 13 Project Technical Approaches Receive data as is – variety of distribution methods Migration of some at-risk formats Metadata remediation, standardization, and synchronization Distilling complex objects into repository ingest items (not easy) Build a digital repository (catalyst for discussion) Develop a repository ingest workflow (learning experience) Some unsustainable activities – for learning experience

14. 14 Project Cultural/Organizational Approaches Engage data producer community and spatial data infrastructure through outreach and engagement; influence practice Sell the problem to software vendors and standards development Find overlap with more compelling business problems: disaster preparedness, business continuity, road building, etc. Start a discussion about roles at the local, state, and federal level Current use and data sharing requirements – not archiving needs – drive improved preservability of content and improvement of metadata

15. 15 Challenge: Coordinated Content Transfer How to allow one data snapshot to be accessible by multiple agencies – more compelling use cases than preservation can put the data in motion (business continuity, disaster preparedness, etc.) Other activities? (DHS, WGRT, State Archives, Census, etc.) Question: Capture frequency of data snapshot? Survey just completed to identify local government best practices, consumer agencies needs

16. 16 NC Frequency of Capture Survey Survey objective: Document current practices for obtaining archival snapshots of county/municipal geospatial vector data layers Seek guidance about frequency of capture Survey topics: General questions about data archiving practice Specific questions about parcels, street centerlines, jurisdictional boundaries, and zoning Survey subjects: All 100 counties and 25 municipalities 58% response rate Survey conducted September 2006

17. 17 Survey Results: Overview Two-thirds of responding agencies create and retain periodic snapshots Long-term retention more common in counties with larger populations Storage environments vary, with servers and CD- ROMs most common Offsite storage (or both onsite and offsite) is used by nearly half of the respondents Popularity of historic images has resulted in scanning and geo-referencing of hardcopy aerial photos among one-third of the respondents

18. 18 Local Business Rules and Uses Driving Temporal Snapshotting Information technology policy (20%) Records retention policy (18%) Tax administration rules (25%) Land use change analysis (11%) Resolution of legal issues (18%) Historic mapping (56%) Other (30%)

19. 19 Frequency of Capture: Parcel Data

20. 20 Parcel Data Archival Data Format* Shapefile (76%) Geodatabase (36%) Arc Coverage (29%) Arc Interchange (7%) Other (10%) * Respondents were allowed to select multiple formats 52% of respondents indicated that a format conversion was carried out in creating the archival snapshot

21. 21 Parcel Attribute Data Handling

22. 22 Digital Conversion of Hardcopy Resources Historic hardcopy maps: Scanned only (15.5%) Scanned and georeferenced (9.9%) Aerial photos: Scanned only (8.5%) Scanned and georeferenced (26.8%) None (54.9%)

23. 23 Questions? Contact: Steve Morris Head, Digital Library Initiatives NCSU Libraries Steven_Morris@ncsu.edu Web site: http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/ncgdap/