IFLA Section of Geography and Map Libraries
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Title	Digital Map Librarianship: Building Digital Collections
	Building digital collections of spatial data should model building map colletions. That is, issues of collection development based on user community, use constraints, economy and effective use are just as relevant with digital geodata as they are with analog or paper maps... if not more so. Having a comprehensive collection development policy reflecting the general and specific digital or electronic information needs of the user community is a good first step. Is the need simply to make a general reference map, say, by province or by countyllevel population, or is there a need to map a more specific demographic attribute such as population by age, by sex, by ethnicity? The general maps can often be provided either with stand alone CD-ROMs or via the Internet (as shown above). Often more specific types of maps will need to be produced from data acquired by the library and made available to a prescribed user group. The definition of the user community is extremely important from a legalistic point of view, defining the constraints of copyright and intellectual ownership of the the data. Inevitably copyright will constrain the user community, in which case distinctions of WWW access, LAN access or machine access work to limit the community. Authentication of the user's IP enables to system to restrict access to data based on the users' domain. Working with the Library's Systems Adminstrator, these tools can be used to control access to licensed data which is purchased and made available either in the library or by the library to the community. Nations vary on how they manage access to copyrighted information. Often consortia have emerged to manage copyrighted information, especially in the academic research community. The United Kingdom's Combined Higher Education Software Team’s CHEST is a good example of a consortial approach to providing access to data. A first step is to build a list of electronic digital spatial products. Jürg Bühler and Thomas Klöti have produced an excellent comprehensive listing, Digitale Karten in der Schweiz: Produkte, Datensätze und Anwendersysteme. This cartobibliography of digital map products creates the necessary partnership between publisher and librarian which leads to a strong, cooperative working relationship. In Connecticut, the partnership between the University of Connecticut's MAGIC and the Connecticut Departments of Environmental Protection and Transportation and federal agencies has built a data library of Connecticut data. This has meant a tremendous labor savings for the agencies who can now point to MAGIC as the distribution point for their digital spatial data. MAGIC makes every effort to credit the agencies by adding linked logos to webpages and mentioning them in the MAGIC FAQ. Strategies will depend upon fostering relationships between data producers and libraries. The types of data in data collection will depend upon the needs of the user community. Digital geodata as vector or raster and image data as scanned historical maps and plans or aerial photography and other remotely sensed imagery require different strategies and management.
Suggested Citation	McGlamery, Patrick, "Digital Map Librarianship: Library functions; Building Collections." Digital Map Librarianship: a working syllabus, 63rd IFLA Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark. (4, Sept. 1997; updated 9, Aug. 1999) <http://magic.lib.uconn.edu/ifla/lb_bc.htm>

Patrick McGlamery Map Librarian Map and Geographic Information Center University of Connecticut Libraries Storrs, CT 06268 libmap1@uconnvm.uconn.edu