The term datastores is emerging in public debate. It has a number of meanings, so in this post we refer to a collection of information resources that share a commonality. One example is the London datastore. This datastore is the Greater London Authority’s single point of access to information which the many branches of local government holds. Ie. the intention is that all information sources are visible and catalogued, such that these are offered to anyone. It is also intended to be a source of free information.
But the London datastore is more than a set of already existing websites. It is also intended as a way of providing access to information which is currently held internally by local government branches. For this purpose people can log requests for information. These are sometimes like freedom of information request for specific data points, but are more often requests for updated information sources which are not available on a public websites. Current requests vary: road traffic speeds by named roads, bed capacity of hotels, school data by borough and many more.
Why is this important?
The motivation behind this particular data store is driven by holders of public office demonstrating transparency. Which is noble enough in its own right, but the implications are much wider. And it reflects the core of our theme: Data Intelligence. This theme exists because of the continued evolution of IT which will enable much smarter mining of data.
Which is why datastores are not only a reflection of pulling together disparate sources of information, but more importantly showing that IT professionals are putting together delivery of more intelligent data solutions. And that the ultimate users are driving the efforts.
The future will be even smarter with data stores that will cater for disparate information sources, tying together data with additional intelligence in the presentation layer.
Image credit: Dave Stokes