geographic metadata standards
The
National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI)
is a community
of interest within the
National Information Infrastructure (NII).
The
Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC)
is the focus for Federal activities in the NSDI. The
Information Infrastructure Task Force (IITF)
is the focus
for Federal activities in the NII. The FGDC approved the
Content Standard for Spatial Metadata (CSSM)
to guide creation of facilities for finding and
retrieving information throughout the NSDI. The IITF approved the
Government Information Locator Service (GILS)
Profile for finding and
retrieving information throughout the NII.
The CSSM inherits the GILS Profile and provides further elaboration peculiar
to spatial data. A user with client software for finding NSDI stuff will
have no trouble finding everything being made accessible according to the
GILS Profile. A user with client software that is GILS compliant but not
CSSM compliant will be able to find the NSDI stuff, but won't be able to
refine the search according to all of the CSSM spatial criteria.
The preceding explanation was provided by
Eliot Christian
US Geological Survey
802 National Center
Reston VA 22092
echristi@usgs.gov
Phone(703)648-7245
FAX(703)648-7069
http://merrill.olm.net/mdocs/metadata.html 10/9/94
dwmerrill@lbl.gov