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North Carolina State University LibraryView Photo of Award Presentation View Interactive Map of SAG Winners 2001The NCSU Libraries provides campus-wide access to geospatial data. The Libraries offers a wide variety of training and workshop opportunities, along with consultation and guidance in data access and use.
Business Problem GIS data and software are used in over 30 different academic departments at North Carolina State University. There is considerable demand for data to be readily accessible across the campus network. In order to minimize redundancy in data acquisition and archiving efforts across the campus community, we established a centralized data repository and a unified data collection-building effort. As users are increasingly inclined to search for data in a self-directed manner, there is a need for Web-based, interactive finding aids and data documentation to aid in time- and location- independent user selection of data resources. Metadata, whether acquired or created in-house, must be populated with additional information that provides the local context for the data. In addition, outreach and discipline-specific training are necessary to facilitate the dissemination of GIS to new individual users and to academic departments not yet using GIS. Because of the complexity of current GIS software, there is a demand for Web-based mapping applications that facilitate access to and use of GIS data by casual users. As map server applications are increasingly deployed by the data producers themselves, there is a need for some mechanism by which users can locate these Web-based mapping services. Technology Implemented The campus maintains a site license for ESRI software products, including ArcView, ARC/INFO and various extensions. The NCSU Libraries maintains a Netware server for campus-wide data access, providing file server, FTP, and HTTP access. Two NT servers host Internet mapping applications, with ArcView IMS applications in production and ArcIMS applications in development. MrSID software is used for image compression. In the near future, Blue Angel Technologies MetaStar Enterprise will be used for metadata searching as well as searching across federated collections. Perl scripts are used for interactive data finding tool creation. Public access GIS workstations running NT are available. Development Team Steven P. Morris, Carolyn D. Argentati, James M. Jackson Sanborn, Mary Ellen Spencer, Hugh A. Devine, Perver K. Baran Development Team Biography The NCSU Libraries GIS Team is responsible for planning and implementing GIS data services. The GIS Team is led by Steven P. Morris, Head of Data Services, and includes the following members: Carolyn D. Argentati, Associate Director for Public Services; James M. Jackson Sanborn, Data Services Librarian; and Mary Ellen Spencer, Public Documents Coordinator. Hugh A. Devine, Professor of Parks, Recreation & Tourism Management, is the lead faculty advisor to the GIS Team. Perver K. Baran, Visiting Research Associate Professor of Parks, Recreation & Tourism Management, is the technical lead for Web mapping application development.
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