Communication Technology and New Media Commons^™

Organizing Geographic Information: The Creation Of The National Spatial Data Infrastructure, Bradley Wade Bishop

Bradley Wade Bishop

Prior to government regulations issued in OMB Circular A-16 in 1990, the organization and dissemination of geospatial data collected by the United State’s governments were unregulated and informal. Circular A-16 called for the creation of the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) and charged the FGDC with creating and implementing metadata standards for geospatial data. The importance of geospatial interoperability and metadata standardization between agencies was amplified in 1994 with EO 12906. EO 12906 called for the creation of a National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). A Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) is the coordination of the creation, collection, dissemination, and storage of …