Spatial Data Explorer: Providing Discovery and Access to Geospatial Data at the University of Arizona

Abstract

The University of Arizona (UA) Libraries has been providing GIS services and access to geospatial data since the 1990's, first by providing access to US Federal Depository Program geospatial data on CD-ROMs and DVDs, later through the Arizona Electronic Atlas and more recently the UA Institutional Repository (UAiR) and the UA Campus Repository. Focus groups with faculty and staff confirmed our view that neither the UAiR nor the Campus Repository meet the needs of the UA's GIS community. To address their needs, the UA Libraries investigated various solutions for developing a geospatial data portal that would facilitate discovery, access, sharing, and retrieval of distributed geospatial data resources and consolidate several repositories at the University into one accessible and modern interface. An inventory was completed, interviews were conducted with relevant campus stakeholders and geospatial data portal managers at various academic libraries, and various options were investigated. Based on several factors, the UA decided to implement Open Geoportal (http://www.opengeoportal.org), a collaboratively developed, open source, federated web application for discovering, previewing, and retrieving geospatial data from multiple repositories. The UA Libraries released the resulting geospatial data portal, Spatial Data Explorer (SDE), in the fall 2015. In anticipation of the release, a survey was conducted in spring 2015 of faculty, staff, and students to gauge interest in contributing data to the SDE. The poster will include why we decided to implement Open Geoportal, screen shots showing the SDE interface and functionality, results of the survey and follow-up interviews with potential contributors, and use statistics.