ically, the public can download the data without
Data sharing
involving coordination with a USACE employee. This
Data are created to be used. The more often and
decreases the number of public calls employees must
the longer they are used, the more return on the
answer, so they can devote more time to their other
original investment. The more ways that they can be
responsibilities.
used, the more valuable the product. However, some-
times people who create the data find it hard to let
Geospatial data library
go of it. The reasons are many: some fear the data
A data library is an organized information struc-
will be misused, some never feel the dataset is com-
ture for storing and archiving a collection of data.
plete, some have personal issues with other individ-
This facilitates the retrieval of data when it is needed.
uals and do not want the others to profit from their
Associating data with appropriate keywords, and ide-
efforts. These human issues are addressed here along
ally with geospatial location, allows discovery of the
with the technological and procedural difficulties in
data by others besides those who created the data. The
data sharing.
investment in data creation is enhanced immeasur-
ably when the data is stored within a data library.
Problem: Technical hurdles
Description
Sharing data within a District or Division requires
Description
Data libraries are not prevalent in the USACE.
compatible hardware, software, and network configu-
Some Districts have lists of available data, but not
rations. One of the major obstacles is file format con-
in a true library. At times, the list of data themes is
sideration. CADD is usually housed in Engineering,
available electronically; in other instances it is in the
whereas GIS is normally in Planning or Information
memory of one or two knowledgeable users. Those
Management. Because the systems grew from dif-
questioned about data libraries believe that creation of
ferent perspectives, different hardware and software
data libraries would be an excellent asset to Districts
systems of choice are used. Most CADD users favor
to facilitate determination of what data are available
Autodesk's AutoCAD or Bentley's Microstation soft-
and what data are needed for a project. One District is
ware. GIS users normally favor ESRI's ArcInfo or
actively pursuing the creation of a data library.
Intergraph's MGE software packages and their asso-
ciated viewing tools. New GIS and CADD packages
have recently come on the market, but they have not
Solutions
Standard procedures related to data acquisition are
seen widespread use in the USACE.
a key step to a digital data library. These procedures
The CADD and GIS software industry have made
may include contracting language requiring metadata
it easier to use data from other native dataset envi-
from the contractor, use of a standard data diction-
ronments by including data readers or extensions
ary, format, and accuracy specifications for each data
that read other data formats. Although the problem
layer. Currently, Engineer Regulations and Engineer
of viewing cross-application or cross-platform data
Manuals are used for theme-specific guidance related
seems to have been solved, the way the different envi-
to data acquisition, but these lack overall District pro-
ronments treat the data still varies. For example, the
cedures related to the data.
treatments of annotations and line widths differ in
A key factor in the use of a data library is the asso-
CADD and GIS, and this type of information is often
ciated data documentation or metadata. Standardized
lost when viewing the data outside of the native data-
metadata creation should be part of the business pro-
set environment.
cess of data creation.
At one office, a data manager position was created
Solutions
to coordinate the GD&S effort, including the develop-
Software vendors are addressing this issue. They
ment of a data library. The data manager was funded
have developed software used in conjunction with
partially out of this work unit to facilitate a test of the
relational database management systems (RDBMS)
concept. Unfortunately, the person originally slated
to allow data to be served to a variety of software
for the position left employment in USACE. After-
and hardware platforms. The two most prevalent soft-
wards, local managers found it impossible to allow
ware products are ESRI's Spatial Database Engine
any of their employees to leave their current duties to
(SDE) and Bentley's Continuum. These products
perform the role of data manager. The funding was
allow CADD users to see the data in CADD format
used to enable a de facto GD&S manager to spend
while GIS users see the same data in GIS format with-
time writing a summary of data management in the
out any loss of information; they allow widespread
organization (Appendix E).
data sharing while maintaining the integrity of the
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