TECHnology
- Meeting canceled due to focus on Geoportal launch.
June monthly users year-over-year
June 2026 Program Update
Geo4LibCamp 2026: data preservation and a new search API
BTAA-GIN participated in Geo4LibCamp 2026 at a significant moment for the program. The new BTAA Geoportal was nearing launch, and the conference's discussions on how to preserve public geodata, how to build infrastructure that lasts, and how to support metadata creation closely tracked the program's own recent work.
Karen Majewicz, Associate Director of Technology and Data Curation, presented the program's Urban Base Layers project, which preserves city-level geospatial data published through open data portals and ArcGIS Hubs. The discussion that followed surfaced shared challenges with preservation of public geodata across institutions: uncertain licensing, limited staff time, and inconsistent relationships with government data providers.
Majewicz and Eric Larson, the software developer for the BTAA Geoportal, also led a workshop on the new BTAA Geospatial API, which extends open-source standards including GeoBlacklight and OpenGeoMetadata with new search features and documentation built for reuse at other institutions.
Both sessions reflect a question the broader field is still working out: how to keep public geospatial data usable over time, in ways other institutions can build on rather than start over.
Program Activities
Committees
Community Engagement
- Progress made on recording updated Geoportal video tutorials with focus on new features and user interface and noted other content pages needing similar updates.
- Signed-off on Outreach Toolkit and 2026 GIS Conference Wrap-Up Report.
- Set a July blog post and brainstormed potential lightning talk topics for Program Team meetings.
Knowledge
- Meetings canceled until Fall.
Coordination
- Confirmed Geoportal June 15 launch timeline and needs.
- Reviewed BTAA-GIN Outreach Strategy Map and overall Communications plan for official Geoportal campaign beginning Sept 2026.
Workgroups
Workgroups
None active at this time
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BTAA Geoportal
This month by the numbers
Top Google searches leading to the Geoportal
- btaa geoportal
- trempealeau county gis
- franklin county lines
- idot cameras
- hancock county ohio gis
- mille lacs county gis
- illinois traffic cameras
- river shapefile of bangladesh
- waupaca county gis
- bass lake indiana
Top internal search keywords
- PLSS
- Ukraine
- Bathymetry
- Geology
- New London
- Sanborn
- public safety answering point boundaries
- Covid
- New london WI
- salvador
Collections
Total records as of July 2026: 130,691
Harvesting Activities
View current harvest operations dashboard.
Web Development
- Production launch: The new API now serves the Geoportal at geo.btaa.org along with a completely redesigned React frontend.