-----Original Message----- From: Maps, Air Photo, GIS Forum - Map Librarianship [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Angie Cope, American Geographical Society Library, UW Milwaukee Sent: 13 February 2012 16:24 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: New Harvard Geospatial Library -------- Original Message -------- Subject: New Harvard Geospatial Library Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2012 11:18:29 -0500 From: Burns, Bonnie <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>, [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>, [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> We are pleased to announce the launch of the latest iteration of the Harvard Geospatial Library (HGL) (http://hgl.harvard.edu/), the University's catalog and repository for geospatial data. This release of HGL is powered by OpenGeoportal (OGP) (http://opengeoportal.org/), a collaboratively-developed web portal that enables geospatial data search, discovery, display, and delivery. OGP was founded at Tufts University and is the result of a multi-year collaboration with the Harvard Library and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries to create a system of interoperable geospatial data repositories based on shared metadata and open source software. The Harvard Geospatial Library is the third site to launch an OGP-powered repository, with more sites to follow in the coming months. The following institutions are participants in OpenGeoportal: .Tufts University .Harvard University .Massachusetts Institute of Technology .University of California Berkeley .Princeton University .Stanford University .University of Connecticut .Yale University .MassGIS .University of California Los Angeles .University of Wisconsin Madison .Cornell University .University of Georgia - ITOS .University of Virginia Spatial data can be difficult to find, and there are very few large, diverse data repositories. Researchers who want to incorporate spatial analysis into their studies often spend days searching multiple, disparate systems to find appropriate spatial features (administrative boundaries, roads, satellite images) to support their research. The Harvard Geospatial Library and OpenGeoportal simplify that data discovery task by giving users the ability to search across multiple large data repositories from one site. The partner institutions have joined forces and opened up search access to their large curated data stores, and are committed to providing not just their public data, but also the metadata needed to make the data sets easily usable. This release of HGL provides significant improvements to previous versions. The user interface provides a cloud-based platform with an open API to search multiple repositories of partner institutions. Improved relevance ranking now supplies more meaningful search results from over 8,500 data layers. In addition, the search now includes data from our partner institutions as well as local materials. Data preview functionality has been improved, making it easier than ever to select appropriate data from the large numbers of layers available. Publicly-licensed data from all participating institutions as well as locally licensed layers can be downloaded and used in a desktop GIS such as ArcGIS, or patrons can connect to the data using online geospatial data editor and analysis tools such as GeoCommons (http://geocommons.com) using open protocols as defined by the Open Geospatial Consortium. For more information, please contact the Harvard Geospatial Library Team: Primary Contact: GIS Librarian Bonnie Burns, [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> Manager of Systems Development Randy Stern, [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> Lead Developer Dave Siegel, [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> Geospatial Resources Cataloger/ metadata specialist Marc McGee, [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> GIS/Georeferencing Technician Whitley Frost, [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> We are all proud to be a part of the OpenGeoportal partnership and look forward to continuing to share the benefits of this collaboration with our students and faculty. Harvard Geospatial Library: http://hgl.harvard.edu/ OpenGeoportal code repository: http://code.google.com/p/opengeoportal/ The OGP at Tufts: http://geodata.tufts.edu/ The OGP at Berkeley: http://gis.lib.berkeley.edu:8080/ Open Geospatial Consortium: http://www.opengeospatial.org/ ArcGIS: http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/index.html Bonnie Burns Bonnie A. Burns Librarian for Geographic Information Services Harvard Map Collection Pusey Library Cambridge, MA 02138 617-496-8125