The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation initiated the NYS Spatial Data Clearinghouse project, and the Center for Technology in Government directed the development of the GIS Clearinghouse prototype. As many as 450 state and county government officials as well as ten corporate partners cooperated in the design and implementation of the online clearinghouse of meta data and spatial data sets. The prototype NYS Clearinghouse provides a mechanism for potential users of NYS spatial data to determine whether data sets they need are already available or under development.
This technical report outlines the development of the prototype, the adoption of the Federal Geographic Data Committee’s meta data content standard, and the search mechanism used for retrieving data. The report also documents hardware and software choices made for implementation of the World Wide Web site.