260 Moving from CEN TC 287 to ISO/TC 211 - The approach of the Portu- guese National Geographic Information Infrastructure Cristina Gouveia 1 , Pedro Henriques 2 , Rita Nicolau 3 , Jorge Rocha 4 , Maribel Santos 5 1,3 TagusPark, Núcleo Central, 301 2780-920 Porto Salvo Tel +351 21 4219800 Fax +351 21 4219856 Email: {cgouveia,rita}@cnig.pt 2,4 Departamento de Informática Universidade do Minho 4710-057 Braga Tel +351 253 604470 Fax +351 253 604471 Email: {jgr,prh}@di.uminho.pt 5 Departamento de Sistemas de Informação Universidade do Minho 4800 Guimarães Tel +351 253 510259 Fax +351 253 510250 Email: maribel@dsi.uminho.pt PORTUGAL Abstract This paper describes the work, currently ongoing, that will lead to the development of a web- based application to allow GI producers to manage their metadata, according to the ISO TC 211 recommendations. To guarantee the interoperability between the different organizations, the metadata is stored in XML documents. After the formal discussion of the GI metadata normalization initiatives, the CNIG approach, as it is implemented by the moment in SNIG, is presented. The cataloguing tool being built, designed to be user friendly platform indepen- dent and complying with ISO TC 211 standard, is discussed. A network of GI producers is presented, making each GI producer responsible for his own metadata maintenance, thus facilitating the SNIG metadata updating process. 1. Introduction The Portuguese National Geographic Information Infrastructure (SNIG) includes a metadata catalogue that complies with the CEN TC 287 pre-standard. This metadata catalogue is a centralized database that contains the description of the Geographic Information (GI) avail- able in Portugal in digital format, which is provided by approximately 200 data producers. This service is available on the WWW since 1995 (http://snig.cnig.pt), allowing to search, browse and download the available datasets. The option to develop a centralized catalogue was at that time justified by the low metadata culture within the producers’ organizations. Although this option allowed, since 1995, to have a metadata inventory of the spatial data produced in Portugal, it implies a demanding update process to avoid a fast outdate of the metadata. The only way to ensure a more efficient updating process is to implement a distributed metadata catalogue, allowing GI producers to manage their own metadata.