Description of the CGS data sources - metadata

Metadata stands for structured information about data. CGS is legally bound to maintain and provide up-to-date information about its data sources on international, national and internal level.

What are metadata and why do we need them?

Metadata (from Greek meta- = between, behind + Latin data = what is given) stands for structured information about data. One example can be a library catalogue card, which contains information about the provenance and location of a book: those are data about data from the book. Metadata helps the users to:

easily find products and data
easily find contact information of the custodians or distributors of data

Metadata database access

CGS Metadata Catalogue

Search for metadata about data, services and applications provided by the CGS. Users can search according to specific theme, keyword, scale, supervisor or technical contact person etc.

Internal use of metadata at CGS

fulfilling of the legal obligation to maintain and provide up-to-date information about its data sources within CGS' own metadata catalogue as well as for harvesting of metadata by national or international catalogues
up-to-date and automatically generated lists of CGS' digital products on the public web pages as well as in the internal information system for CGS employees (list and guidepost of databases, on-line applications, ESRI ArcGIS Server services, WMS services and download services, etc.)
effortless information management: a possibility to update information about digital products centrally (in the metadata catalogue)
accessibility of information regardless certain staff
effective data management support

Use of CGS metadata on national level

CGS Metadata Catalogue
National INSPIRE Geoportal of the Czech Republic (CENIA) - daily harvesting from the CGS Metadata Catalogue

Use of CGS metadata on international level

European INSPIRE Geoportal (JRC, European Commission)
EGDI Metadata Catalogue (European Geological Data Infrastructure) containing information about National geological data and services of the EU member states and the results of the major European geoscience projects (EuroGeoSurveys activity EGDI, projects of GeoERA, OneGeology-Europe, Minerals4EU etc.) - daily harvesting from the CGS Metadata Catalogue