PLANS FOR DATA DISTRIBUTION VIA THE INTERNET

SNEP Metadata Summary

Table A3.1

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To assist in the development of an accessible Sierra Nevada Information System, SNEP staff worked with staff in the Resource Agencys California Environmental Resource Evaluation System (CERES/University of California, Santa Barbara [UCSB]) program and the Alexandria Digital Library (ADL) project to define protocols for data documentation, cataloguing, and on-line storage. CERES is an information system developed by the California Resources Agency to facilitate access to a variety of electronic environmental data pertaining to California. Project Alexandria is a research project at UCSB whose primary goal is to design, implement, and deploy a digital library for spatially indexed information.
An important component of SNEPs data cataloguing effort has been preparation of metadata for project GIS coverages. Metadata are data about data that describe the content, quality, condition, and other characteristics of data. Spatial data pose special problems of documentation that have been addressed by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC), CERES, Alexandria, and many other organizations. These groups have been developing standard, structured descriptors of spatial data so that the data can be located and accessed across a network using computerized database management tools. SNEP has employed CERES and FGDC metadata standards to catalogue the database in order to make the data accessible through Project Alexandrias digital spatial library facility at UCSB. The ADL will provide a framework for putting these collections on-line, providing search and access to these collections to broad classes of users, and allowing both collections and users to be distributed throughout the Internet.
During 1995 the Alexandria Project completed the design and implementation of a successful rapid prototype system (RPS). The RPS is a stand-alone digital library that includes interface, catalogue, storage, and ingest components and is running in the Map and Imagery Library at UCSB. The Alexandria Project is now extending the RPS to a system supporting multiple users over the Internet. In line with its basic strategy, the second version of ADL will be connected to the World Wide Web.

SNEP GIS Metadata Summary

SNEP metadata were catalogued by two methods for inclusion in the Alexandria Digital Library. The first method catalogued data sets originating with the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service. These data sets were catalogued using the CERES metadata schema. Details of that cataloguing effort can be found in a metadata summary by Quinn Hart of CERES. The second method catalogued data sets created by SNEP and is described by this summary. Priority was given to those data sets that are unique and not available from other sources. This metadata cataloguing work was the combined effort of SNEP, CERES, and Alexandria personnel.

Files

Three unique data sets were catalogued, the coverages and databases compiled for the SNEP late successional old-growth forest and significant natural areas projects and the tree seed zones of California. There were fifty-seven metadata entries, fifty-two ARC/INFO coverages, three data dictionaries, and two ARC/INFO databases. All of the coverages are geographically associated with national parks or national forests except the tree seed zones, which extend over the entire SNEP study area.

Metadata Entry Form and Elements

In cooperation with the Alexandria project, SNEP selected a subset of the FGDC metadata elements, based on applicability to the SNEP data sets and compliance with Alexandrias metadata standards.
The metadata entry form was created in Microsoft Access by Alexandria personnel. This was the Alexandria projects first attempt to distribute a metadata entry form. The form consists of a subset of FGDC elements chosen by SNEP with additional USMARC elements required by Alexandria.

Geographic Coordinates, Transfer Size, and Format

The geographic coordinates and transfer size for each layer were derived by use of an ARC/INFO Arc Macro Language (AML). The AML projects the individual SNEP coverages to latitude and longitude coordinates and provides the size of each file in ARC/INFO export format.

Resource Description

The name of the file as it is known to SNEP GIS staff is used.

Beginning Date and Ending Date

The data sets catalogued did not require that a range of dates and times be described. For both beginning and ending dates, the year the data were captured is used for the late successional old-growth forest and significant natural areas projects, and the date of the source map is used for the tree seed zones.

Local Call Number

A local call number is a metadata element mainly applicable to bibliographic information, but it is used here to refer to the file address (often referred to as the file path) on the computer used by SNEP GIS. This element refers to a particular metadata system, in this case, the American National Standard for Bibliographic Information Interchange.