The preservation and archiving of geospatial digital data : some challenges for National Maping Agencies
Taylor, D.R.F., T.P. Lauriault and Peter L. Pulsifer
Powerpoint presentation.
While National Mapping Organisations and others are producing more and more digital data, much of it is being lost and some of it permanently. Cost of recovery has been shown to be very high, as for example in recovery of information from the British Domesday Survey of 1986. In terms of the scale of the problem, we are losing map data faster than it is being created. Causes of the problem include insufficient attention to archiving by data producers (often seen as someone else's problemm), difficulty in preserving ephemeral and rapidly changing data and rapidly changing technologies leading to obsolescence. After summarising two case studies which are addressing the problem, nine points towards potential solutions were described; these are detailed in the presentation slides. The final slide suggests what action National Mapping Agencies should take to ensure that information is available to future analyses, for example investigations involving analysis of change through time.
Event: Expanding horizons in a shrinking world
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