Future Directions for Geolibraries Michael F. Goodchild University of California Santa Barbara

Geolibrary n 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 n NSF funding n Universal access – n Searchable catalog –a subset of FGDC –MARC compliant –approaching 3 million records n Downloadable objects n Map, coordinate, and gazetteer interfaces

n Proliferation of warehouses, geospatial data libraries, clearinghouses –user interfaces, catalogs n 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 n How to achieve interoperability?

CLM of the Alexandria Digital Library

Geoportals: n A single point of access –Geography Network –Geospatial One-Stop n Offering both data and services n "Live data" –using OGC standards n Providers "publish" to the site n Automated metadata harvesting –from collaborating sites –GOS at 76,000 data sets in 1/05

GOS coverage, 1/05

There Will Always Be More Than One Shop n Competition –between agencies, levels of government, public and private sectors n Segmentation –not all providers of geospatial information are content to be part of a single whole n Disciplines –not all disciplines see the geospatial content of data sets as their primary characteristic n Jurisdictions –GOS is national

CLM revisited n Regional partitions –a data set is most likely to be found on a server located within the region n Thematic partitions n Data type and format partitions n 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 n The library model –search and retrieval of information objects –legacy granularity –OGC standards support subset but not superset –gatekeeper n Towards an information model –answers to queries –independent of the source –which is the world's highest capital city?

Geolibraries as GIS n Focus on queries rather than data acquisition n Fully functional servers n Accurately georeferenced

The future of geolibraries n Mixed models –libraries serving information objects –information sources responding to queries n The CLM problem –SAPs have an assured future n Multiple sources will not agree –conflation –"A person with one watch always knows what time it is; a person with two is always uncertain"