Centralized vs. distributed systems: academic library models for GIS and remote sensing activities on campus.

ABSTRACT

Academic libraries are a prime example of an enterprise whose mission is to support the information needs of its institution. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) are popular topics for academic research and are used globally. Two major enterprise information service and data delivery models, centralized and distributed, describe how enterprises approach information sharing. Simply stated, centralized systems provide services and data through a single individual or departmental unit. Distributed systems rely on many interconnected individuals or units to supply services and data. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, which may lead to a hybrid model of combined elements or a movement away from one and toward the other. This article discusses centralized and distributed enterprise information service and data delivery models and how two Florida university libraries deploy these models to deliver enterprise GIS services and data to their institutions' user communities.

INTRODUCTION

Information services and data products such as those associated with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) are provided by many public and private organizations. By definition, "Any organization [public or private] that needs to support multiple concurrent users accessing a shared information resource" (Rich, Das, & Kroot, 2001) can be called an enterprise. The enterprise's concurrent users can be both internal and external to the organization. Academic libraries are a prime example of an enterprise. If viewed in the context of an academic institution, one might even view libraries as an enterprise embedded in the larger institutional enterprise. At the academic institution level, administration, teaching, research, and technology transfer are intended to meet the information needs of concurrent users in society. Simultaneously, the people, information services, and materials physically owned or licensed virtually by the library directly support the mission and information needs of the academic institution, that is, faculty, staff, students, and others outside the institution. For the purposes of this article, GIS will be used to refer to both GIS and RS as combined spatial services and data.

ENTERPRISE GIS

An enterprise GIS is typically viewed as the infrastructure (hardware, software, and personnel), spatial data, and applications used to inventory, manage, and analyze an institution's own spatial resources. In "Developing Enterprise GIS for University Administration: Organizational and Strategic Considerations," McCormick discusses enterprise GIS for university administration (McCormick, 2003). He points out three GIS usage areas: technical reference (planning and facilities), public reference (cartographic visitor maps), and decision support (student recruiting, locating facilities, etc.). He also describes three scales of enterprise GIS usage: a single departmental GIS, which is created for a specific purpose; a loose confederation of departments, which might share spatial software and data; and a fully integrated enterprise system, which may even be used for detailed records management. The scale of enterprise usage may change due to success or failure at any one particular scale.

The literature reveals that McCormick's public reference category exists in academic libraries. Some articles have proposed GIS systems that provided patrons with collection location information (Xia, 2005), developed GIS interfaces to digital historic collections (Haas et al., 2005), and investigated geographical interfaces to catalog records…