OPEN DATA ACCESS AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS FOR HISTORICAL CARTOGRAPHY: A GEOSS USE CASE

摘要

The registration of historical georeferenced maps to the GEOSS Common Infrastructure (GCI) allows users to identify, retrieve, and visualize other components and/or services that are available at the GEO Web Portal. The CODATA and GEOSS principles were followed in developing the use case for the discovery of historical datasets within the GEOSS Common Infrastructure. Afriterra Foundation was registered as the Data Provider at the Common Infrastructure Registry. A 1722-map by Guillaume De l'Isle titled "Carte D'Afrique dressee pour L'usage du Roy par Guillaume Delisle Primier Georgraphe de Sa Majeste de l'Academie Royale des Sciences a Paris Chez l'Auteur sur le Quay de l'Horloge du Palais avec Privilege du Roy " was selected. For georeferencing was applied an affine transformation and used ESRI ArcGIS software. The georeferencing introduced a significative amount of error in the raster dataset, given the historical nature of the geographic coordinate systems. The preparation of the use case highlighted the need to create a new Societal Benefit Area to encompass historical maps and historical geospatial records. This new Societal Benefit Area might be described as "Cultural Heritage." The concept of cultural heritage can be associated with the concept of cultural landscape as the "combined works of nature and of man" described by the World Heritage Convention of 1992 as well as with the concept of historical maps and records as already included in the " World Heritage recommendation concerning the protection of moveable cultural property" of 1978. Much more work needs to be done regarding the identification of the characteristic properties of the different cartographic documents and their schemas within the GEOSS framework, in order to support discovery, analysis and decision support services. One of the benefits of the use of historical cartography within the GEOSS framework is to use the historical georeferenced map though integration with potentially other datasets. Several issues remain to be discussed and solved such as the ones related to the adoption of specific legal and e-business models, and how to continue to promote geospatial data sharing among different organization that sometimes do nothave a well-defined geospatial data management policy, or where access and usability of geodata is difficult. Discussion about use cases involving historical cartography will continue at the ODAIPR workshop that is scheduled for the ICC 2011 Conference.