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INSTITUTIONAL ANI) POLITICAL ASPECTS OF THE DEVELOPMENT AND 
USE OF LARGE SPATIAL DATABASES 
Nancy Tosta 
State of California 
Teale Data Center 
PO Box 13436 
Sacramento, California 95813-4438 
ABSTRACT 
Several state agencies in California are currently using geographic information system (GIS) technology for a 
diversity of applications such as toxics assessments, transportation, planning, farmland mapping, and natural 
resource assessments. Many of the departments using the technology have acquired hardware and software, 
and are now compiling data to meet specific needs of individual programs within the agencies. Several of these 
efforts involve the development of large statewide data sets. 
Over the last two years, various ad hoc committees have identified data sets that are generic in nature and 
might be used by more than one agency. There are several examples of these, including roads, county 
boundaries, census tracts, and hydrographic features. The physical size of California, as well as its 
environmental diversity and population growth mean that any data set representing statewide spatial attributes 
at a scale greater than or equal to about 1:100,000 tends to be at least a few hundred megabytes in size. An 
example might be the TIGER files representing census spatial boundaries. These files for the state are 
approximately one gigabyte in size. Significant time and expense can be incurred in developing, analyzing, and 
maintaining these large files. 
There are no executive orders of specific legislative mandates that require state agencies to cooperate with each 
other in the use of GIS. In fact, in many instances a somewhat competitive relationship exists between 
agencies. The challenge of creating integrated, common spatial data sets, the development cost and use of 
which might be shared among state agencies, is institutional and political, rather than technical. Teale Data 
Centre, one of the state’s mainframe data processing centers, has the technical ability to manage large datasets 
and mechanisms in place to provide services to all state agencies. Teale, in conjunction with a few of the state 
agencies currently exploring the use of GIS, has begun to develop a digital library of "generic" spatial data. 
This paper will explore the arguments surrounding the data library approach to implementation of GIS and 
will examine issues inherent in developing, maintaining, and accessing spatial data among state agencies in 
California.