Project reports, technical information, and a review of the transformation from prototype to an operational system are available on this Web site. The purpose of the Clearinghouse is to allow producers of geographic data to describe what datasets they have available and to allow users of Geographic Information Systems to find the datasets they need. Data producers describe their datasets using the Federal Geographic Data Committee Standard for Digital Geospatial Meta Data. Meta Data is information about data and the FGDC standard specifies what should be contained in a meta data record for geospatial datasets. It includes such things as who produced the data, the geographic area covered, the dataset category or theme, scale, accuracy information, how to obtain the dataset, etc.
Users find the datasets they are looking for by conducting a search.
As a result of that search, a list of datasets will be returned. The complete meta data record for each dataset can then be viewed, so that the user can determine if the dataset is truly what they need. In some cases, a map image of the dataset can be viewed. Information about obtaining the dataset can be found in the Distribution Information Section of the meta data. In some cases, the file will be available for immediate download through ftp.