Metadata: (met-a'-date-ah) - 1.
Data about data. 2. Geospatial data specifications.
3. Documentation of geographic data. 4.
Data about the content, quality, condition, and other characteristics of data.
An abundance of digital/geospatial data is available via the Internet. However, much of this data
remains hidden from even the most persistent web-surfer, thereby causing many to marshal their
resources to develop expensive datasets that would not be necessary if there had already been
some data cataloging resource on-line.
In order to answer a 1994 presidential mandate (Executive Order 12906), the "National Spatial Data Infrastructure" (NSDI) was formed to help solve
the aforementioned problem. The Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC), the coordinating entity of the
NSDI, has developed a standard metadata format and instituted what they call a "National Geospatial Data Clearinghouse". This clearinghouse enables any user of
geospatial data (whom has a web browser) to find GIS datasets by the available FGDC-compliant metadata
records that have been submitted by any clearinghouse node site.
Otherwise known as the "Metadata Parser" and developed by the
U.S. Geological Survey, this tool offers the user an error checking option to
assist in metadata development of completely compliant metadata records. This program also
enables the user to produce .HTML (among other sorts of) data files of his or her metadata.
This Windows application, developed by the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers, offers the metadata developer an interface in which to
develop FGDC metadata from scratch, or edit existing FGDC metadata records.
Download a freeware version of a metadata editor/production tool developed by
the U.S. NOAA Coastal Services Center in order to document ArcView shapefiles.
