At 08:57 05/02/99 -0600, Gerald wrote:
>The metadata thread has got me wondering: how do you use it?
>
>Our office is getting to the point where identifying tables by name only
is not always informative enough.
>Especially since our network server is still limited to 8.3
>
>Can someone please summarize why & how you use this.
Absolutely, a file name is not enough to identify a mapinfo table. And we
want to identify maps as well as just the tables. Metadata is all about
documenting your data to support quality control, and more practically, so
you can find the right maps and tables.
Some international standards will have you spending more time documenting
than creating the raw data. The ANZLIC approach ( see www.anzlic.org.au) is
more workable than most, but still too much for most of our customers. The
trick with metadata is deciding how much is "enough", and trying to
automate and siplify the process so people will actually use it.
We are fairley pragmatic with our GeoBasemap Mapping system. We embed a
limited metadata set in the .tab files (description, abstract, edit
history) and expose it through a modified layer control tool - on the
basis that is is when you are using layer the control that you want to know
about the data.The 40 character description comes up in the layer control
dialogue box along side the layer name. Click on the descripton to get more
detail.
We also maintain a map database and store simple metadata describing the
maps. When you click the button to save a map definition, we present the
metadata creation dialogue. At the same time we catalogue the tables
included in that map (if they are not already in the catalogue) and copy
any metadata that is in the .tab files into the catalogue. We provide all
that, with some catalogue search tools with our GeoBasemap Images+ systems.
Where we can, we try to catch the "free" metadata such as file creation
date (where our systems create the file). In Images+ V2 beta we also show
geographical limits in the map catalogue.
For those that want to go all the way, we do custom work where we embed a
reference ID in the .tab files and/or the map catalogues, and use the
Images+ linking capability to hot link to an external metadata database
form. We often demonstrate links to ANZLIC style metadata database - but
while lots of people talk about it, so far all our production customers
have opted for the cut down implementation.
We defininately fill out the table metadata and map catalogue metadata
whenever we do a bureau job - I really don't know how operators, without
this type of sytems, ever properly recover their data set when they restore
an old project from archive.
..... Ken Moule
Exa-Min Resource Industry Consultants
2nd Floor, 143 Charlotte Street, BRISBANE
PO Box 12020, Elizabeth Street Q 4002
AUSTRALIA
Ph: +61 7 32100741 Fax: +61 7 32100738
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www.geobasemap.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this list, send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put
"unsubscribe MAPINFO-L" in the message body, or contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
