-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Questionnaire:  NRC Licensing Geographic Data and Services
Date: Sat, 07 Jun 2003 18:26:34 -0400
From: "Tsering W. Shawa" <[log in to unmask]>


Early this year I was selected as one of the committee members to study
licensing geographic data and services by the National Research Council.
The committee study is sponsored by U.S.G.S., U.S. Census Bureau,
Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Government Printing Office,
and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

We have already met twice in Washington, DC.  During those two meetings
different interest groups did their presentations to the committee about
pros and cons of licensing geographic data and services. One of the
committee members and I were given the task of studying academic and
library acquisitions and use of geographic data and services.

It would be very helpful for me if librarians dealing with Map and GIS
data could share their opinions and answer the following questionnaire.
a) What is your rough acquisition budget for purchasing maps and GIS
data?
b) What percentage of your collection is acquired through the Federal
Depository Library Program?
c) Do you want to share your opinions about the pros and cons of
licensing geographic data?

Please email your answers to me at [log in to unmask] and not to
Maps-L. If any librarians are interested in finding what other
librarians have written, I would be happy to summarize questionnaires
and share them with you later.

Background Information
The following tasks were given to the committee to study:
(1) Explore the experiences of federal, state, and local government
agencies in licensing geographic data and services from and to the
private sector using case studies such as the Landsat Program,
(2) Examine ways in which licensing of geographic data and services
between government and the private sector serve agency missions and the
interests of other stakeholders in government data sets,
(3) Identify arguments in favor and in opposition to spatial-data
licensing arrangements,
(4) Dissect newly proposed license-based models that could meet,
concurrently, the spatial-data needs of government, the commercial
sector, scientists, educators, and citizens,
(5) Consider potential effects on spatial-data uses and
spatial-technology developments of competing license/non-license
approaches within the commercial sector, and
(6) Analyze options that will balance the interests of all parties
affected by licensing of spatial data and services to and from
government.

If you are interesting in learning more about this study visit this web
site http://www7.nationalacademies.org/besr/Licensing.html

Many thanks.
-Wangyal

Tsering Wangyal Shawa
Geographic Information Systems Librarian
Head, Digital Map and Geospatial Information Center
Geosciences and Map Library
Guyot Hall, Princeton University
Princeton, NJ 08544
Phone: (609) 258-6804
Fax: (609) 258-4607
www.princeton.edu/~geolib/gis