The archiving of digital geographical information

Abstract

National and state laws in Germany charge public archives with cataloguing, preserving, and making available to the public documents of historical or legal importance that are no longer needed by the public agencies that created them. This clause also applies to data generated by geographical information systems (GIS). However, preserving this digital topographic information in perpetuity poses a major challenge for these public archives, which, in the absence of a single, clear method for achieving this goal, have adopted a number of different approaches. Each of these approaches has its distinct advantages and disadvantages. But there are, nevertheless, certain criteria that can be used for evaluating these alternatives. The data should be stored in a format that is simple and widely available. Archives must take into account the cost and effort entailed for the initial archiving of this geo data, yet they must also insure that interval between future data migrations will be as long as possible. Archives must maintain their independence from other institutions or companies whose own continuity cannot be presumed. And the data must be archived in a way that will be easily accessible to the user. The exchange of ideas and experience between archivists and GIS experts is necessary for the work of both groups and should continue.