February 16, 2011 -- The Geospatial Multistate Archive and Preservation Partnership, a multistate partnership exploring ways to expand the capabilities of state governments to provide long-term access to geospatial data, has selected Missouri and Montana from a national invitation for bids to join the partnership as full partner states.
Missouri and Montana will join Kentucky, North Carolina and Utah in the partnership, which began its National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program-funded work in late 2007 and will run through the end of 2011.
GeoMAPP brings together geospatial and archival staff in each state to identify, preserve and make available temporal and superseded digital geospatial data with ongoing value.
Joining the project are the Missouri State Archives; the Missouri Geographic Information Officer; the Missouri Spatial Data Information Service; and the Montana State Library. In addition to housing the regular library collections, the Montana Digital Library Division also manages the Natural Resource Information System which provides comprehensive access to information about Montana's natural resources.
GeoMAPP has already released a number of white papers and guidance documents, including an interim report and a guide to geospatial metadata (external link), and is preparing to release further guidance on digital geospatial formats and business planning.
In addition to the full partners, GeoMAPP also has an informational partner program that provides a mechanism for sharing the project’s findings as widely as possible in state government. Arizona and Mississippi recently joined the project as Informational Partners, bringing the total of informational partner states to twelve.
