A GeoNetwork administrators workshop was recently held at Land Information New Zealand (LINZ)'s national office in Wellington. It was a chance to learn about, and discuss, GeoNetwork and BlueNet technology with Simon Pigot from the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).

Twenty-three people took part in the workshop on 12 April. They came from different sectors such as central and local government, CRIs, universities and the private sector.

Although part of my role on the day was helping to coordinate the workshop with Geoff O'Malley from the New Zealand Geospatial Office (NZGO), I was also involved as a technical participant from LINZ. From a technical point of view it was great to see the flexibility and depth of the software.

GeoNetwork is an open source software solution for cataloguing and sharing geospatial information. BlueNet MEST (soon to be renamed ANZMEST - Australia/New Zealand Metadata Entry Search Tool) is a version of GeoNetwork with the ANZLIC metadata profile built in.

"The workshop was interesting and demonstrated the successful use of the GeoNetwork and BlueNetMEST in Australia."
- Brent Hall (Otago University)

The main aims of the day were to learn how to install and configure GeoNetwork on our own laptops, and then to explore advanced administration tasks.

Mr Pigot, a lead developer on the GeoNetwork and BlueNet MEST projects, said he was "impressed with the state of New Zealand's geospatial sharing initiatives."

The following presentations outline the capabilities of the software:

• Implementing GeoNetwork (Introduction) (PDF 3.1MB)
• GeoNetwork: Some New Features Planned for the Trunk (PDF 3.9MB)
• Implementing GeoNetwork - Basics (PDF 676KB)
• Implementing GeoNetwork - Advanced (PDF 652KB)

The workshop was organised by the NZGO in conjunction with the Australia New Zealand Land Information Council (ANZLIC) and CSIRO.

For further information see:

• GeoNetwork 
• BlueNet MEST (ANZMEST) or
• contact me.

Bill Nelson

Senior GIS Analyst
Land Information New Zealand