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Hard Work and Dedication Pay Off for the Regional Office Branch of Surveys and Maps

Submitted by Jaymee Fojtik

Due to the hard work and dedication displayed by the Surveys and Maps Branch of the Southeast Region Division of Realty, we are happy to announce that all 127 FWS Southeast Region refuge boundary metadata records are in full compliance with the Federal Geographic Data Committee's (FGDC) geospatial metadata standard and are available on two public Clearinghouse sites:

USGS National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) Metadata Clearinghouse (http://mercury.ornl.gov/nbii) and FGDC National Spatial Data Clearinghouse (http://www.fgdc.gov/clearinghouse/clearinghouse.html ). 

Serving compliant metadata records is a high priority that supports the President's E-Gov initiative and enables users to locate and download the actual data files for their own use. 

The Southeast Region is the second USFWS Region to post records to both sites. Region 9 hopes to initiate work on the Northwest Region refuge boundaries in the near future.  The Region 9 Division of ITM, Branch of Data and Systems Services, is providing in-house support for metadata creation and editing.  In addition, the USGS NBII Program has agreed to continue its QA/QC and Node (metadata serving) support in FY 2004 through an existing MOU that was established in FY 2003.

If you are interested in producing FGDC compliant metadata records for your geospatial AND/OR biological data sets, please contact Barb White (303-275-2310) for more information.  Participation in this cooperative effort requires FWS staff time to provide the information needed for compliance with FGDC standards and to review and approve edited metadata records before they are served on the public Clearinghouses.

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NOTE:  The USFWS refuge boundary metadata records can be viewed by searching the NBII and/or FGDC Clearinghouse and following the instructions provided below for each site:    

** Search the NBII Clearinghouse:   http://mercury.ornl.gov/nbii/

1. Search In Full Text [default choice] -- Search For [enter] wildlife or refuge

2. Click on Search [page will refresh every 3 seconds until the search is completed

3. Search Summary will list  the 21 NBII Nodes -- scroll down to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and click on link to view metadata records

** Search the FGDC Geospatial Data Clearinghouse:  http://www.fgdc.gov/clearinghouse/clearinghouse.html

1. Click on "Search for Geospatial Data"

2. Click on the name of a Clearinghouse Gateway (e.g., EDC or FGDC - if a server is "down", try another one)

3. Use the "NSDI Search Wizard" to select server(s) and data

4. Click on Administrative and Political Boundaries [default selection] - click on Next>>

5. Define Geographic Area of Coverage:  to find the Region 4 data quickly, make the following selections:

   1. select State of Georgia from picklist;

   2. click on Next>> for list of data servers;

   3. scroll down page, click on Clear All>> and select only the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service data server;

   4. click on Next>> to specify Search criteria;

   5. search in full-text or by field:  enter wildlife and/or refuge, and click on Search>> [page will refresh when search is completed].