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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