Building a regional clearinghouse for spatial information – views and experiences based on a research project in SW Finland

Abstract

The need to improve digital information availability and sharing is currently discussed widely in the geographical information community. Digital data management involves several problems, which are not yet solved in comprehensive and general manner. A research and development project, which approaches the data management issue from the practical perspective, has been launched in south-western Finland. The project aims to establish a functional archive, which gathers and delivers geographical information. The purpose of the service is to offer data owners a place to store data which they are willing to share with others. Also people who need the data are provided with one common source of information. This paper presents experiences of the archive implementation, and some theoretical aspects of the data sharing and networking.