Collaborative Convergence and Maintenance of Disparate Databases

About the Program

Category: Information Technology (Best in Category)

Year: 2009

Cumberland County, a rural locality by definition, has exceeded its own expectations in terms of geospatial technology and more importantly intra-facility collaboration. Over a three year stint the various Administrative Constitutional and local State offices have collectively and earnestly worked towards combining and maintaining a single geospatial database. The end goal being a single user-friendly and universal application from which end-users can resolve public information historically maintained in distinct and often archaic formats. While some original datasets were created by outside sources such as vendors of State authorities, the majority have been derived completely by in-house capture. This geospatial initiative has reasonably been divided into two phases: dataset production/maintenance and public availability. This submission covers the first phase which has recently been completed. It identifies not only the value of the dataset as a useful daily tool, but as importantly the exemplary efforts made by a host of County entities that previously had no geospatial inclination or experience; all of which were organized and achieved with limited outside professional assistance. County staff placed emphasis on gaining useful geodatabases as well as increasing staff education through certified ESRI facilities. Where an achievement of this value would require significant expense, the County budget remains relatively unburdened having set aside less than $200,000 over the last three years.