Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC)
Home page of the FGDC, which links to information about data and services,
metadata standards, the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) Clearinghouse
Network, metadata tools and training, and other online geospatial metadata
resources.
National Spatial Data Infrastructure
(NSDI) Clearinghouse Network
The NSDI Clearinghouse network, sponsored by the FGDC, is a decentralized system
of servers located on the Internet that contain metadata records of available
digital spatial data. This metadata is collected in a standard format to facilitate
query and consistent presentation across multiple participating sites. Each
metadata collection, known as a Clearinghouse Node, is hosted by an organization
to publicize the availability of data within the NSDI. The metadata in
these nodes is searched by the geodata.gov portal to provide quick assessment
of the extent and properties of available geographic resources
National
Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) Clearinghouse Nodes
The FWS is a partner in the NBII Clearinghouse. The FWS Clearinghouse
Node is a registered Z39.50 metadata clearinghouse node that allows FGDC-compliant
metadata to be harvested into the geodata.gov portal. The FWS Node is hosted
on a metadata distribution server that is managed and maintained by the Oak
Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN. This server meets the FGDC “search
and retrieve” protocol (ANSI Z39.50 or ISO 10163-1995) for publishing
metadata into the NBII Clearinghouse and the National Geospatial Data Clearinghouse
for harvesting by geodata.gov. The ORNL provides these services at no charge
through a partnership agreement with the USGS NBII Program.
Geospatial One-Stop Portal
The geodata.gov portal is operated in support of the Geospatial One-Stop Initiative
to provide “one-stop” access to all registered geographic information
and related online access services within the United States. Geographic data,
imagery, applications, documents, web sites and other resources have been
catalogued for discovery in this portal. Registered map services allow casual
users to build online maps using data from many sources. Registered data
access and download services also exist for use by those interested in downloading
and analyzing the data using GIS or viewer software.
FGDC
Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM)
Get a copy of the FGDC CSDGM workbook,
more commonly known as the Green Book. You will need
this as a reference, as well as the graphical representation of the CSDGM developed
by Susan Stitt, USGS Center for Biological Informatics. This set of color-coded
diagrams provides a graphical representation of each section of the CSDGM,
the elements contained within the section and the conditionality of the elements.
Biological
Data Profile (BDP) of the CSDGM
If your data are biological in nature, refer to the NBII Metadata
Workbook. The graphical
representation of the BDP, also developed by Susan Stitt, USGS, includes
all the elements in the FGDC CSDGM as well as additional elements to describe
biological data sets.
For additional information regarding this Web page, contact Barb White, Division of Information Resources and Technology Management
Return to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
GIS Home Page
Visit the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Home
Page
Keywords= biological, metadata, guidance, FGDC, NBII, elements,
data, standards, templates, tools