Building and Sharing Spatial Metaphors for the Catalogue of Oregon Marine and Coastal Information

Master of Science, Geography, Oregon State University, Spring 2005
Emphasis in Geographic Information Science, Minor in Marine Resource Management

Graduate committee: D. Wright, J. Good, A.J. Kimerling

Colin Cooper
Dept of Geosciences, Oregon State Univ
Corvallis, OR 97331-5506
colinacooper-at-gmail.com

Abstract.
Spatialization is an innovative way to expand searching capabilities
for a marine/coastal reference database by using a metaphorical map
framework to establish a sense of place for non-spatial information.
Spatializing the Catalogue of Oregon Marine and Coastal Information (COMCI),
a coastal reference database, enables the marine and coastal resource
community to quickly access pertinent information in a dynamically changing
marine environment that will aid them in making decisions on management,
protection, and conservation. Geographic information systems, including
ESRI's ArcGIS and ArcIMS, are used in conjunction with an Access database
of non-geographic data to create visualizations that facilitate the use
of an interactive search interface. Using a self organizing map (SOM)
technique to spatialize the coastal database, a metaphorical information
space was created and implemented into an interactive graphical display.

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