In case you haven't heard I was elected Chair of the GeoLibrary Board in January. We are embarking on a strategic planning process and have issued a request for proposals and hope to have a contractor on board by the end of June to assist with this project.

If you are a vendor interested in submitting a proposal you can find the RFP posted on the State of Maine Bureau of purchasing website.

I had an interesting conversation with a couple board members the other day. I offered that I thought the GeoLibrary should be a resource for more than just state geographic data. It should also provide linkages to non-state data where possible but it should also host geographic data created for other governmental entities that do not have the resources to publicly host the data. I think it should also be a resource for other public data created for many other purposes. 

I found that at least these two board members did not agree.

I am curious,  as a member of this list serve and presumably a user of geographic data in your GIS applications, should the library host non-state data or should only host state data, provide links to any other non-state data and ignore all other geospatial data being developed. Especially the Maine related data which may be one small subdivision of the state or something regional in scope.

I am very interested in hearing your thoughts.