Partner: Stanford University

Subject: The University Libraries of UCSB and Stanford are leading the formation of the National Geospatial Digital Archive (NGDA), a collecting network for the archiving of geospatial images and data. Geospatial information has played an important role in the history of the United States. From the first colonial maps to the satellite imagery of the 21st century, cartographic information has helped define and frame our view of the United States. Project objectives include:

• Create a new national federated network committed to archiving geospatial imagery and data.
• Investigate the proper and optimal roles of such a federated archive, with consideration of distant (dark) backup and migration, directly serving content to users, vs. referring requestors back to the originators of the data for copies or assistance, active or passive quality/integrity monitoring, application of metadata, federated searching, dissemination of metadata, etc.
• Collect and archive major segments of at-risk digital geospatial data and images.
• Develop best practices for the presentation of archived digital geospatial data.
• Develop partner communication mechanisms for the project and then ongoing.
• Develop a series of policy agreements governing retention, rights management, obligations of partners, interoperability of systems, and exchange of digital objects.