IndexGeo Pty Ltd - online geographic directories

IndexGeo Pty Ltd is an Australian information technology services company established in 1995. We develop online interfaces to geographic information, especially directories and catalogues of spatial data (i.e. earth-related data) and natural resources information. We have been instrumental in building some of the key online geospatial services in Australia. The facilities that we develop enable effective management and discovery of geospatial information resources.

• Geospatial search and text search facilities, using ISO23950 (Z39.50) search and retrieve services. Structured document search with XML
• Metadata input facilities and geospatial document management services
• Establishing Internet services using existing backend information systems
• Integration with geographic information systems (GIS) and database management systems (RDBMS)
• Interactive mapping
• Website technical review

Our office is located in Goulburn (between Sydney and Canberra) in New South Wales, Australia.

• Z-alarm - ensure that Z39.50 geographic search servers are properly configured and reliably available. In 2004 the Australian Government provided some funds to use Z-alarm to diagnose the servers behind the ASDD. The results were presented at the 2004 Metadata Workshop, along with a concise explanation of the Z39.50 search services which form the basis of the ASDD.
• Past: Z-alert - automated search of ASDD to show new or updated dataset descriptions this month.
• Past: Eco Companion environmental resources catalogue and online document management service
  • Concise descriptive documents are personally managed by members and published as catalogue records.
  • Sophisticated digital library search facilities (using Z39.50) enable effective resource discovery and promote documents to worldwide virtual library networks.
  • Document management facilities use Standard Generalised Markup Language (SGML).
  • Validation services for batches of geospatial dataset descriptions to ensure professional XML document collections
• Past: Provide "hosted node" services (using Isite2 and Apache Cocoon) for some of the Australian Spatial Data Directory (ASDD) nodes:
  • Australian Capital Territory (ACT)
  • Bureau of Rural Sciences (BRS)
• Past: "Technical assistance" project to establish the Australian Spatial Data Directory (ASDD) - package software, technical documentation, configuration, testing, support
  • 2015 update: After about 17 years of operation this service has now evolved into FIND (the Australian Government spatial data catalogue).
  • Use the Wayback Machine Internet Archive to see old copies of the ASDD interface and documentation.
• Past: Establish some nodes of the distributed ASDD, including:
  • Australian Antarctic Data Centre (AADC)
  • Australian Hydrographic Office (AHO)
  • Australian Surveying and Land Information Group (AUSLIG)
• Past: Locality mapping component of "Search AUSLIG Master Names File" interface (look for the blue locality cross and map availability markers). (This service has now changed to something else.)
• Past: Australian Environmental Resources Information Network (ERIN) at Environment Australia (an Australian government agency) ...
  • Full text and bibliographic search facilities using Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS) with key words and phrases to discover relevant documents. Also simple geographic search facilities using the <META> tags of HTML.
  • Search for information available in a region using various interactive map interfaces and freeWAIS-sf structured text searching. The interface is no longer available. The techniques are now used in other ERIN services.
  • A Generic Map Interface to Query Geographic Information using the World Wide Web
    Crossley, D.C. and Boston, T. (August 1995) (see Wayback Archive)
    Best Paper at the "First Asia-Pacific WWW Conference" Sydney, Australia. September 1995
    Invited Paper at Fourth International WWW Conference Boston, USA. December 1995
  • Online directory of spatial data for the Commonwealth Environment Portfolio to assist with geospatial data management. Use the abovementioned interface and select the "Spatial Data Sets" option.
  • Searchable collections of URLs of "Environmental Information Sources on the Internet" with a user input and URL management system behind it.
  • Precursor to the Australian Marine and Coastal Data Directory.
• Other: Nash Whist : a collaborative strategic trick-taking card game for three to six players.

Events that we consider are important in the field of geospatial resource discovery in Australasia. See the news page for more detail and links.

• After about 17 years of operation the ASDD has now evolved into FIND (the Australian Government spatial data catalogue).
• Main gateway to Australian Spatial Data Directory (ASDD) has moved to GeoScience Australia
• ANZLIC Metadata Guidelines version 2 is released
• ANZLIC metadata working group releases version 1.3 of the ANZMETA XML Document Type Definition (DTD) for geospatial metadata
• GSDI Cookbook is released - guidelines for building spatial data infrastructures
• Australian Spatial Data Directory (ASDD) is released at the GSDI Conference
• ANZLIC paper "Technology Evaluation and Proposed Framework for the Australian Spatial Data Directory (ASDD)" is available
• Eco Companion Australasia - catalogue of environmental resources and document management service is released

Geospatial metadata (dataset descriptions) are catalogue records describing collections of earth-related data. These documents are structured metadata (data about data) which concisely describe the datasets. The records form the basis of online digital library catalogues. Our set of pages outline the components of geospatial metadata management and some development activities in Australia and New Zealand.

Some geospatial datasets that are managed by IndexGeo Pty Ltd, using Eco Companion Australasia - environmental resources catalogue and online document management service.

Technical support, resources, guidelines, and assistance for implementing Z39.50 search services. Explains how to establish a Z39.50 server to make your organisation's geospatial data available for searching in the distributed Australian Spatial Data Directory (ASDD) and hence other catalog services. IndexGeo can assist you to implement the server and to manage your metadata.

IndexGeo Pty Ltd is an active contributor to the Apache Software Foundation.

This site makes minimal use of graphic images and maximal use of text ... efficient searching, fast, informative, clutter free. Of course, there is appropriate image usage for locality map thumbnail images.