October 16, 2009 -- The pirate mystique is a big part of the history of North Carolina, but when the Geospatial Multistate Archive and Preservation Partnership gathered in Raleigh, NC from September 14-17, they were more interested in preserving than in plundering.
GeoMAPP is working to identify strategies and solutions for the preservation of digital geospatial information, and the Raleigh meeting was the fourth face-to-face gathering of the project, part of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program’s Preserving State Government Information initiative. The meeting was hosted at the North Carolina Office of Archives and History.
The GeoMAPP partnership includes representatives from the archives and geospatial divisions of the states of Kentucky, North Carolina and Utah, all of whom were represented at the meeting. Each state partner had an opportunity to discuss their recent activities, with much discussion focused on the ongoing intrastate data transfer activities. These activities document the technical processes each state has undertaken to move a test set of data successfully from their geospatial division to their archival division. After testing the intrastate transfer designs, GeoMAPP will explore the challenges of moving content across state lines to other state partners.
The meeting included a number of working group sessions, including those focused on the preparation of business case and appraisal documents that will help shape the project’s interim report, due early in 2010.
GeoMAPP has recently received an extension to continue its work with NDIIPP through 2011, and much meeting discussion focused on the new work that will be undertaken, including the continued development of the business planning toolkit and the testing of software products to support the consolidated access to data from multiple states in a common interface.
GeoMAPP will bring on additional partners during the extension period, and has also announced an informational partners program that will allow the project to engage with a number of states to share lessons learned about archiving geospatial data.
