Overview
Penn State University Libraries participates in a collaborative Big Ten Academic Alliance geoportal project to “provide discoverability, facilitate access, and connect scholars across the BTAA to geospatial data resources.” The project began in Fall of 2015, has completed two years of development and is currently funded for two more years of planning and development through 2019. The portal itself aggregates metadata records for geospatial data and scanned map information resources that are downloadable or otherwise accessible online. By bringing together geospatial information resources from many organizations and institutions the geoportal is meant to be a “one-stop-shop” for users searching for geospatial data and scanned maps.
Results
The geoportal uses Geoblacklight and other web technology to support geographic and keyword information resource discovery in a user-centered interface. It went live in August of 2016 and now has twelve partner institutions that have contributed over 8,000 metadata records to the portal, of which Penn State has contributed 1,307. Current information resources span the globe and are concentrated in the BTAA geography of the Midwestern and Mid-Atlantic of the U.S.
People
Nathan Piekielek, Linda Ballinger, Paige Andrew, Karen Estlund, Sonia Kaufman, Connor Henderson, John Hamilton, Steve Kroger
Penn State Presentations
Andrew. (2016). PA Libraries Association Annual Meeting, Poconos, PA, U.S.
Andrew. (2016). PAGIS Conference, University Park, PA, U.S.
Acknowledgements
Funding is provided by BTAA library directors and coordinated through the BTAA Office of Library Initiatives.