Metadata and GIS
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Metadata and GIS ® An ESRI White Paper • October 2002 ESRI 380 New York St., Redlands, CA 92373-8100, USA • TEL 909-793-2853 • FAX 909-793-5953 • E-MAIL [email protected] • WEB www.esri.com Copyright © 2002 ESRI All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. The information contained in this document is the exclusive property of ESRI. This work is protected under United States copyright law and other international copyright treaties and conventions. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as expressly permitted in writing by ESRI. All requests should be sent to Attention: Contracts Manager, ESRI, 380 New York Street, Redlands, CA 92373-8100, USA. The information contained in this document is subject to change without notice. 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J-8953 Metadata and GIS An ESRI White Paper Contents Page GIS Data Sharing on the Internet Is a Reality...................................... 1 ESRI Supports Metadata ................................................................ 1 Why Is Metadata Important to GIS? .................................................... 1 Metadata and GIS Management........................................................... 2 ESRI Supports Metadata Management .......................................... 2 Access to Metadata................................................................... 2 What Is Metadata?................................................................................ 2 Metadata Standards ........................................................................ 3 Digital Communication Standards ................................................. 3 Using Z39.50 to Participate in the NSDI Clearinghouse ......... 3 How Does ESRI Support Metadata?.................................................... 3 Authoring Metadata........................................................................ 4 Standards-Based Metadata Tools............................................. 5 Supported Data Types .............................................................. 5 Authoring Custom Metadata .................................................... 5 Publishing Metadata....................................................................... 5 ArcSDE .................................................................................... 6 Clearinghouse Support ............................................................. 6 Discovering Metadata .................................................................... 7 With ArcCatalog ...................................................................... 7 With Metadata Explorer........................................................... 7 With Clearinghouse (Z39.50) Clients ...................................... 8 ESRI White Paper i J-8953 Metadata and GIS "ESRI feels that software for creating, editing, and managing metadata should be a standard feature built into any GIS system—not something 'extra.'" —Jack Dangermond, ESRI President GIS Data Sharing on This is an exciting time to work with metadata because an Internet infrastructure for the Internet Is a global data access is fully functional. Several organizations have developed metadata systems. One of the most evolved and well-supported is the Federal Geographic Data Reality Committee (FGDC) National Geospatial Data Clearinghouse, also known as the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). The NSDI Clearinghouse is realized as a group of "gateways" that send out search requests to participating servers on the Internet. Because the NSDI Clearinghouse is based on protocols for data exchange established by the Library of Congress, it can provide access to geographic information system (GIS) data for users who are not necessarily GIS users. At this writing, more than 200 GIS metadata services are participating in the NSDI Clearinghouse. ESRI Supports ESRI® technology supports metadata creation and editing as a standard part of ArcGIS™ Metadata Desktop. ESRI is committed to supporting metadata standards such as those from the FGDC and International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Support for these standards is included with ESRI GIS software. ESRI software can be customized to support other standards. Metadata services are a standard part of ArcIMS®, the ESRI GIS Web server. ArcIMS offers full support to the NSDI Clearinghouse. Any ArcIMS user can immediately participate in the NSDI Clearinghouse using ESRI software. ESRI supports the NSDI Clearinghouse by providing a clearinghouse gateway node. Why Is Metadata ESRI is realizing a vision of global data sharing by creating technology to support Important to GIS? metadata. Metadata makes spatial information more useful to all types of users by making it easier to document and locate data sets. The growing availability of data of all kinds from many different sources has helped GIS technology become more useful and widely adopted. With metadata support, data producers can publish information about data, and data consumers can search for the data they need. Because spatial data is the fuel of a GIS, it is important to know if the data will meet user needs. Data users need metadata to locate appropriate data sets. Metadata provides information about the data available within an organization or from catalog services, clearinghouses, or other external sources. Metadata not only helps find data, but once data has been found, it also tells how to interpret and use data. Publishing metadata facilitates data sharing. Sharing data between organizations stimulates cooperation and a coordinated, integrated approach to spatially related policy issues. ESRI White Paper Metadata and GIS J-8953 Metadata and GIS Keeping spatial metadata records is important. From a data management perspective, Management metadata is important for maintaining an