----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Comment to Alan:
 
Of course libraries are really about service to information, not necessarily
about collections of information.  Paper demanded that there be a collection
in one (or many) places so that serve can be performed.  Serve to the nation's
geographic/spatial information will suffer unless a public conduit is maintaine
d.
 
I do believe Alan, that in the Spatial Metadata Standards FGDC has benefitted
by the library communities experience in describing material.  What has to
be assured is that the reference service aspect follow the description of the
data, as it does in a good library.  How do we get this into the Depository
Library Council?
 
 
Patrick McGlamery
 
  ----------------------
  PATRICK MCGLAMERY
  MAP LIBRARIAN U-5M
  HOMER BABBIDGE LIBRARY
  UNIV. OF CONNECTICUT
  STORRS, CT 06268
  (203) 486-4589
  LIBMAP1@UCONNVM
 
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
          I'm not a map librarian; I'm a GIS specialist.  As a participant
          in the Federal Geographic Data Committee, all that I have seen
          about with the National Spatial Data Infrastructure has been
          digital products--nothing paper.  I'm left thinking that
          traditional libraries and map librarians are already
          marginalized.  Tools like EPA's GRIDS (an IBM mainframe
          depository of geographic data) and USGS-WRD's Distributed Spatial
          Data Library (an ARC/INFO and WAIS data distribution system--this
          is still being developed), to name a few, are the first steps
          toward the NSDI--and they, to my knowledge, have been developed
          with the assistance of any sort of librarian, map or otherwise.
          The price tag for the NSDI is oriented toward the elimination of
          paper products in favor of digital databases and communication.
 
          Alan Brenner