Butch,

Here is feedback on the white paper from the National Park Service's GIS
Council (national coordinating body). Doug has some interesting thoughts
regarding the approach taken in the paper. I cc'd a couple of other
NPS colleagues and will forward their comments if/when received.

Cheers,

Chris Dietrich, MS, PMP
Digital Information Services Program Manager
Resource Information Services Division (RISD)
U.S. National Park Service
303-987-6971

*Conservation means development as much as it does protection. I recognize
the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural
resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or
to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us.* — Theodore
Roosevelt



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Wilder, DOUGLAS <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 4:04 PM
Subject: Re: [NDSA-CONTENT] NDSA Geospatial Content subgroup Geospatial
Appraisal white paper
To: "Dietrich, Chris" <[log in to unmask]>
Cc: Joe Gregson <[log in to unmask]>, David Duran <[log in to unmask]>,
Bill Slocumb <[log in to unmask]>


Hi Chris,

You forwarded it to the right folks (Joe and David). I've read over the
paper and it is a nice summary of all the problems inherent in keeping
track of and managing geospatial data. All the issues addressed have been
around for at least 15 years and probably longer.

Overall, the paper takes an alarmist tone noting that the large and growing
amounts of geospatial data pose huge preservation concerns. However, it
does not address advancing technologies that have and will likely continue
to allow for more and more data to be archived. I think it would be helpful
to have some acknowledgement of this in the paper.

The paper suggests that some delegated group of people are going to have to
judge what data out there is of value to the nation and should therefore be
preserved (I may be wrong about this--I have not scrutinized the paper).
This seems to me to be an analog mindset trying to tackle a digital
problem. I don't think anyone can reasonably expect to determine what data
will be important in the future but I suppose if it's important now, those
data are at least worth preserving. In general, I think, those sorts of
decisions should be left to as local a data manager as possible. By this I
mean the person closest to the data--preferably the creator of the data.

The paper gives a high-level overview of some of the large data
management/cataloging systems that the government has created (data.gov and
its offspring "geodata.gov") but it would be greatly useful to also list
for all government land-management agencies (bureaus, departments, etc.)
how each currently manages geospatial data. In the NPS, we try to use the
IRMA Data Store as our main repository of data (I'm not even sure I'm
correct in saying this). What does the BLM do? The EGIM DOI folks (Joe and
David included) may have already addressed and reported on how each
government agency handles geospatial data. Ideally, all such data would be
cataloged in the big, national geodata.gov and I believe this is happening
for the NPS but I'm not certain. If each agency has some infrastructure,
protocol and data management culture, then staff closest to the data who
take the time to upload it into the infrastructure following some protocol
(because that's their agency culture)-- those staff are in effect doing the
very appraising and selecting this paper says needs to be done. What I'm
trying to say is that an address of how the nation should appraise, select
and then preserve its geospatial data will need to include a significant
role for the workers "in the trenches" creating and managing data noting
what infrastructure (silo or not) they use. The appraising and selecting
will probably need to be left to the data managers. At a high-level, we
just need to be sure those data managers have a way of doing data
preservation. Again, for example, the NPS has the Data Store and any
authorized data manager who loads data into it is effectively deciding what
what data should be preserved. I'm not sure the paper really emphasized
this granular point about how data are saved.

Was Bill Slocumb involved in the development of this paper? I ask since it
came from NC where Bill stomps.

Doug









On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 10:54 AM, Dietrich, Chris <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> Doug,
>
> As a member of the National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA)<http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/ndsa/>,
> the NPS has a stake/voice in the outcome of various NDSA efforts. One such
> effort is the white paper at issue in this message thread. The NDSA is
> asking for review/input from members.
>
> Since you are the DISC GIS liaison, would you please forward this request
> to folks you think would be best suited to comment on the draft white
> paper? Please provide input yourself if you can.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Chris Dietrich, MS, PMP
> Digital Information Services Program Manager
> Resource Information Services Division (RISD)
> U.S. National Park Service
> 303-987-6971
>
> *Conservation means development as much as it does protection. I
> recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the
> natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste
> them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us.* —
> Theodore Roosevelt
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Lazorchak, William <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, Jun 4, 2013 at 11:21 AM
> Subject: [NDSA-CONTENT] NDSA Geospatial Content subgroup Geospatial
> Appraisal white paper
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
>
> NDSA Content WG members,
>
> The Geospatial subgroup has been hard at work for the past few months and
> we are submitting for your review the document "NDSA White Paper: Issues in
> the Appraisal and Selection of Geospatial Data."
>
> The report was authored by Steve Morris of the NC State University
> Libraries with significant input, review and editing from the membership of
> the Geospatial subgroup.
>
> We're excited about the work but recognize the value of review by the
> Content WG prior to sending it off to the NDSA Coordination Group for final
> approval and release as an official NDSA document.
>
> If you could kindly take a few moments to review and provide comments we'd
> greatly appreciate it. Any comments (feel free to use "track changes" if
> that works for you) should be sent to both Brett Abrams (
> [log in to unmask]) and I by COB Tuesday June 18.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Butch
>
>
> Butch Lazorchak
> Digital Archivist
> Library of Congress
> National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program
> [log in to unmask]
> (202) 707-2603
> facebook.com/digitalpreservation
> @ndiipp
>
>
>
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>


-- 
Douglas T. Wilder
National Park Service
Midwest Region - GIS
402.661.1852
*science.nature.nps.gov/im/units/mwr/<http://science.nature.nps.gov/im/units/mwr/default.asp>
*

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