Cartographic User Advisory Council Page

General Meeting - Annual Federal Agencies Presentations

CARTOGRAPHIC USERS ADVISORY COUNCIL (CUAC) 2004 MEETING MINUTES

May 7, 2004

Bureau of the Census, Suitland MD

CUAC Representatives
Paige Andrew, Pennsylvania State University, SLA
David Decklebaum, University of California, Los Angeles, WAML
Donna Koepp, Harvard University, ALA/GODORT
Mary McInroy, University of Iowa, ALA/GODORT
Clara P. McLeod, Washington University, St. Louis, GSIS

Bruce Obenhous, Virginia Tech, SLA

John Olson, Syracuse University, ALA/MAGERT

Joanne Perry, Pennsylvania State University, NACIS

Daniel T. Seldin, Indiana University, NACIS
Wangyal Shawa, Princeton University, ALA/MAGERT
Christopher J. J. Thiry, Colorado School of Mines, WAML
Linda Zellmer, Indiana University, GSIS

Agency Presenters

Doug Vandegraft, Chief Cartographer, Division of Realty, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
John Hébert, Chief, Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress
Marian Brady, Data Access and Dissemination, U.S. Bureau of the Census
Carol Brandt, GIS Program Manager, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, U.S.

       Department of Transportation

Milo Robinson, U.S. Geological Survey/Federal Geographic Data Committee

Michael Cooley, Cooperative Topographic Mapping, U.S. Geological Survey

Betsy Kanalley, Staff Cartographer Geospatial Services Group, U.S. Forest Service

TC Evans, Deputy Superintendent of Documents, Information Dissemination

      Organization, USGPO

Robin Haun Mohamed, Development Project Manager, USGPO

Agenda:           Friday May 7th

Agency Reports

9:00 – 9:15                    Welcome and introductions (co-chairs)

9:15 – 9:45                   Doug Vandegraft - FWS

9:45 – 10:15                  Milo Robinson - FGDC

10:15 – 10:30                Break

10:30 – 11:00                Michael Cooley - USGS

11:00 – 11:30                Carol Brandt - BTS

11:30 – 12:00                Betsy Kanalley - USFS

12:00 – 1:00                  Lunch

1:00 – 1:30                    John Hébert - LC

1:30 – 2:00                    TC Evans/Robin-Haun Mohamed GPO

2:00 – 2:15                   Break

2:15 – 2:45

2:45 – 3:15                    Marian Brady - U.S. Census Bureau

3:15 – 4:30                    CUAC Members Wrapup/Assignment Reminders

4:30                              Adjourn

Milo Robinson

U.S. Geological Survey/Federal Geographic Data Committee

Milo Robinson (formerly worked in the State of VT and now with FGDC for 5 years) represented the Federal Geographic Data Committee (http://fgdc.er.usgs.gov). Updating their activities with 2 major activities to be discussed at greater length: the longstanding Grant Program (which is currently open) and Future Directions

Ivan DeLoatch, FGDC Director, couldn’t attend. He asked Milo to attend and sent his greetings. FGDC was realigned with the Geographic Information Office within USGS during the past few years, FGDC staff are employees of USGS, but the FGDC mission is more external than USGS’ mission and includes coordinating among all federal agencies.

FGDC was established by OMB Circular A16 in 1990. Executive Order 12906, which established the NSDI in 1994, is now ten years old. FGDC in looking forward must also look back a bit and consider the changes in technology that have occurred. NSDI exists to help agencies share data and improve methods of data sharing. FGDC plans more outreach and more effort to craft a National Geospatial Strategy and implementation plan for FGDC to further the development of NSDI. The evolution of NSDI will depend upon the changing technologies, societal needs, and organizational relationships forged to promote data sharing.

Future Directions:

Look back but describe desired future state; identify 2-3 goals that need to be

achieved; identify the factors that will contribute to achieving the goals; identify specific actions that need to be taken. Short term time frame and actionable items.

     Conducting interviews and facilitating group discussions; draft report & solicitation of comments from community; final report (due June); final report to FGDC Steering Committee (June). Check the FGDC Web site.

Early input from the user community indicated that there was overlap between The National Map and Geospatial One-Stop, which are seen as competing programs. Through a discussion at a meeting in Charleston, regarding this and “A Clear Vision of the NSDI,” an article written by Mark DeMulder, Barbara Ryan, Ivan DeLoatch, Hank Gary, and Karen Siderelis in Geospatial Solutions (April 1, 2004, URL:

http://www.geospatial-online.con/geospatislsolutions/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=89953 -- USGS leadership has tried to clarify goals, build on strengths and complimentary programs.

Future Directions Now – NSDI

FGDC – coordination, standards, setting policy, & promoting education, metadata training

*Geospatial One-Stop –e-Gov. Promote discovery of data, providing access to a wide variety of content.

*The National Map – more traditional/changing paradigm. Focus on topographic content, applications, & USGS scientific datasets (geology, biology, water resources etc.).

Draft Goals to focus a Geospatial Strategy for the Nation:

      Forging Partnerships with Purpose: by 2007, the NSDI is guided by a governance model that includes all representative stakeholder groups. For example, the standards process moved to an ANSI process to make it more inclusive of the non-federal stakeholder groups.

      Sub-goals: restructuring agreements, better agreements to work with private sector, engage people not already engaged in spatial community with FGDC.

       Making Framework Real: by 2007 the nation will have a program in place for generating the framework data themes that fosters the processes for nationwide collection, documentation, access, and utilization of data.

Framework, in a big sense, is meant to describe a sustaining relationship to develop data at the local level; it includes the basic datasets you need to use. It also means the business process whereby local government information can go up to state level and state level can go up to federal level; the private sector has a role in there and federal data can make its way down.

A lot of what has emerged is the basic framework datasets (7): geodetic control, ortho-imagery, elevation, transportation, government units, cadastral, and hydrography. The focus is on getting some of these data sets up and running; making progress engaging the states and territories, & promoting effective data sharing.

Sup-goals: focus on implementing the standards; transportation standards have been developed and need implementation. Want real data being transferred between Federal agencies and to their partners.



Delivering the Message: by 2007, the NSDI will be recognized as the primary source for relevant and dependable geospatial data. Example: Dieticians have the need to know about GIS now appearing in the professional journal of dieticians. Geo-spatial One-Stop was mentioned. This is one of the goals, to have the use of GIS expanding into other likely disciplines, delivering the message out to groups with which we are not as familiar.

FGDC Future Directions Plan will be up on the FGDC Web site; comments are being sought and needed; report to be released on June 15th.

Questions/discussion:

Framework data: Doesn’t explicitly say what scale is desired, but should be the best available. In an urban area the scale would be larger, while in a rural area it would be smaller scale. That trend is emerging from the states anyway. More of a concept than a specific definition-- it is up to the provider to determine scale as no one scale has been specified.

The Clearinghouse is the foundation for Geospatial One-stop activity. One-stop provides front end access and helps build the clearinghouse, making it easier for non-geospatial people to use. FGDC is working closely with One-stop so very little difference between Clearinghouse and One-stop data

Regarding Z39.50 -- Existing standards will be used – Geo-spatial One-stop will adopt national metadata standard as will all federal agencies.

Plan for Future Directions is on Web site, with a June 15th release date for draft.

CAP Program

CAP funding opportunities listed and discussed. Application deadline is June 4th.

Check Web site (http://www.fgdc.gov) for fuller information.

Category 1 – Metadata Creation and Implementation.

Funding up to $9000 is available; seed funds for new organizations that haven’t been doing metadata. Objectives are to get metadata created and made available via the NSDI Clearinghouse and ensure that metadata is following standard practices. There are a lot of trainers and metadata tools out there that can be brought into the organization and the application is short an uncomplicated.

Category 2 – Metadata Training Assistance

Intended to provide assistance to metadata trainers with funding up to $30,000 available. Must be available to travel regionally & nationally and have metadata expertise. Objectives are that organizations are trained and metadata is created and served up through clearinghouse. Intended for state-level clearinghouses to send out personnel as trainers within the state/region.

Category 3 – NSDI Institution Building.

This is a new category. Support provided to consortia to develop or strengthen existing multi-organizational strategic plans for development and maintenance of shared digital geographic resources. Foster the establishment of cross-organizational (working outside normal community group) efforts that develop and advance the NSDI within a specific geographic area. Funding proposals up to $15,000, fairly flexible as to proposals. Eligibility: consortia of public and non-profit organizations. Envisions programs such as workshops, speakers brought in for presentations.

Category 4 – Clearhinghouse Integration with OpenGIS Web Mapping Service Objective: deploy web map and feature client and server software for linking to and viewing geospatial data from metadata in the NSDI Clearinghouse utilizing embedded URL map requests. Operating web map server software extendable to support Open GIS Web Mapping (or feature) Standard 1.0. FGDC assists in providing training and technical referrals.   Funding is available up to $10,000. More advanced grant than previous categories.

Category 5 – Establishing Framework Data Services using OpenGIS Web Feature Service Specification focused on emerging standards. The goal for projects in this category is to deploy OGC Web Feature Service (and optionally, client) interfaces to respond to Web “POST” requests for framework data, and to identified theme in the format given by OGC Geography Markup Language (GML) Version 3.0. FGDC assists in providing training and technical referrals. Funding is available up to $75,000. Advanced grant. U.S. Department of Transportation has already implemented and delivered content data according to content standards at this time.

Category 6 – The National Map

FGDC has been working cooperatively with Geospatial One-stop and The National Map to develop issues. This is a new approach which is fairly well known in geospatial circles. The hope is that other agencies will want to participate. Projects shall have an outcome of providing sustained operational capabilities to maintain and update data over an organization’s or consortium’s geographic area of interest and to provide access to them through The National Map. Of special interest are organizations or consortia whose geographic area of interest covers a “large area” -- for instance, a state or group of states and or/one or more “urban areas”. Every state has a USGS state liaison and if funding is sought, the USGS state liaison must be included in the proposal. Funding is available up to $75,000.

Check out the FGDX Web site. $1.55 million is available to be divided among the grant requestors. (Submitted by Joanne M. Perry)

Doug Vandegraft, Chief Cartographer

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Division of Realty

Doug titled his talk, The Status of Digital Boundary / Digital Land Status Program



He defined a digital boundary as a digitized version of the “approved acquisition” boundary, which is the line(s) encompassing those lands that have been approved for acquisition by the FWS. There can be a variety of possible ways to gain approval:

Executive Order                              Regional Director Approved

Public Land Order                           Congressionally Approved

FWS Director Approved                 Migratory Bird Conservation Commission

                                                        Land and Water Conservation Fund

He defined digital land status as digital lines reflecting those parcels of land within the approved acquisition boundary in which the FWS has fee or less than fee interest. They are also known as a refuge Boundary, ownership Boundary, or a parcel Layer.

The Fish and Wildlife Service is divided into regions.

Region 1 includes CA, OR, WA, NV, ID, HI, and the Pacific outlying areas. The region has 112 refuges with 5,860,595 acres. This accounts for about 5.7 % of the acreage within the system. Maps have been completely digitized.

Region 2 includes AZ, NM, TX, and OK. The region has 44 Refuges with 2,846,206 acres. This accounts for about 2.8 % of the acreage within the system.   44/44 boundary maps 37/44 land status maps have been digitized.

Region 3 includes MI, OH, IL, IN, WI, MN, IA, and MO. The region has 52 refuges with 1,312,410 acres. This accounts for about 1.3 % of the acreage within the system. 52/52 boundary maps have been digitized.

Region 4 includes GA, KY, TN, NC, SC, FL, AL, AR, MS, and LA. The region has 44 refuges with 3,759,912 acres. This accounts for about 3.7 % of the acreage within the system. 126/128 boundary maps and 82/128 land status maps have been digitized.

Region 5 includes ME, VT, NH, RI, CT, MA, DE, NJ, NY, PA, MD, and VA, WV The region has 71 refuges with 495,243 acres. This accounts for about .48 % of the acreage within the system.   Maps have been completely digitized.

Region 6 includes KS, NE, CO, ND, SD, MT, WY, and UT. The region has 121 refuges with 4,821,524 acres. This accounts for about 4.7 % of the acreage within the system. 106/121 boundary maps and 62/121 land status maps have been digitized.

Region 7 includes AK. The region has 16 refuges with 83,035,352 acres. This accounts for about 81.3% of the acreage within the system. Maps have been completely digitized.

Doug informed us that the Service has been in the process of updating the map chapter in the Fish and Wildlife Service manual. He showed us a legend of old linetypes and pen sizes that were holdovers from a time period when maps were being produced manually.    He presented various examples of digital maps now being produced by FWS, Division of Realty. He compared them with older style maps produced by the Service. The new maps use color to a much greater degree.

DOQs are used whenever possible as the basemap for all FWS maps. When DOQs are not available the Service relies on DRGs and DLGs. Attempts have been made to get all regions to conform to graphic standards and publication formats, but they are not consistent throughout the system. The FWS Cartographic Resources website is http://realty.fws.gov/carto-resources.html. (Submitted and approved by David Deckelbaum)

Michael Cooley

Cooperative Topographic Mapping, U.S. Geological Survey

The National Map

Within the Geography discipline program The National Map is the most critical USGS program. We are presently harvesting data that is available rather than producing it in house. This is a very significant shift for the Survey. This year, we will be putting a significant number of people from our production centers out into the field closer to the sources of data. We are talking to cities, counties and other government agencies to locate and obtain data.

Graphic Products produced from The National Map are being produced from a non-tiled data set. This is fairly critical. Before, with the quadrangles, all of the information was tiled. In the future, that will not be the case. Graphics will be produced where and when they are needed with only the information that is requested. Printing and distribution will be done by the private sector, as is being encouraged by the current administration, which is trying to move things that can be done by the public out to the public. We are committed to working with our partners, and consider the library community to be one of our partners. We want to have a dialog with libraries. We also need to work through the rest of The National Map process, for example the model for the delivery of graphics will be different then what we have today.

Distribution Concept of the National Map

There will be a seamless reference layer at 1:24,000 from which a small resolution scale could be easily derived. Once a user identifies what is needed, they will go through The National Map order process to get a collarless or collared Digital Raster Graphic. For those areas that are very popular, especially for our business partners who might want to stock a graphic and print it on demand, we’ll produce a graphic color plate which will then be taken to a printer. All of this will be done through a staged FTP site.

The National Atlas

Another aspect of The National Map is our small-scale component, the National Atlas (http://www.nationalatlas.gov). At some point in time, the National Atlas and The National Map will be brought c loser together so that it is more seamless. Right now the Atlas is addressing a different user community than the National Map. As the two grow, it is expected that they will grow together.

One of the trends of the National Atlas is a page-sized product. Based on user feedback, we have found that most people don’t want to build a map; they want the map built for them. So we are doing more of that. Some examples are the state Congressional district and the Federal lands maps. Key graphics of data from the National Atlas will be published in print form.

Organizational Changes at USGS

This year the distribution component, especially for hard copy products, is going to be moved over to the Geographic Information Office from the Geography Discipline. That will happen October 1, 2004. This will include all publications coming out of the USGS, including the Water Resource and Geologic discipline publications and those from our State Offices. At the same time, the ESICs and libraries will also report to the GIO. The name Earth Science Information Center (ESIC) will be changed to USGS National Science Network. They will be getting out of retail. A couple of them will become interpretive associations. The one in Denver is now an interpretive association, and we are looking into converting the ESICs in Reston, Menlo Park and possibly Alaska into interpretive associations as well.

Map printing has been transferred to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). As of last January, topographic map printing is being done by the FAA. This was done because the demand for USGS graphic has been decreasing and it was difficult to justify keeping a big expensive press operating, whereas the FAA still has a need to print and were looking to expand their operation. FAA is now printing topographic, BLM and thematic maps. Topographic map oversight, however, remains in the Geography Discipline.

A Request for Information (RFI) will be going out to the private sector this summer. USGS is looking for input on strategies and new technologies that we can use to help get our products out faster, better and cheaper. We will be considering things such as maps on demand, a different distribution model and most likely will be going to some sort of print on demand, which will eliminate the need to store some of the maps that are just sitting on the shelf. There were around 4000 maps that had zero sales last year, so it doesn’t really make a lot of sense to continue to stock and warehouse topographic products that don’t have a whole lot of sales.

USGS, like others in the depository community, is going to continue to move to electronic publication. More books, maps and reports will be going online. Most of them will also be available in hard copy.

Two new actions that have been taken this year are the USGS Store (http://store.usgs.gov/), which has products that are for sale. It is an online catalog that has been modernized from an older system. The Publications Warehouse (http://infotrek.er.usgs.gov/pubs/) contains a lot of bibliographies about USGS thematic maps and reports. It also contains links to publications that are available online. Prior to this, USGS did not have a good way for the general public to determine what publications were available, especially in the Open File Reports, which contain recent scientific information made available before it is published as a formal report. This includes information from all disciplines, such as geology and water resources.

Some of the new products that have or will come out include posters of Glacier Bay, Under San Francisco Bay, and the Color-Coded Contour Map of Mars. The Lewis & Clark: Legacy of Science map has been very popular. A new map in the Geographic Face of the Nation series is also available.

USGS is also distributing products for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA, formerly National Imagery & Mapping Agency). They are producing a set of posters with maps of battlefields that they have used in displays. They have a series of historical maps available including maps of Antietam Battlefield, Armistice Day (WWI), D-Day, Normandy Air Campaign, Philippines, and Iwo Jima. Michael Cooley was not sure if these posters would be coming through the Depository Library Program.

Questions and Comments from CUAC:

CUAC: Given the plan to contract for printing, will these materials continue to be available through the Depository Library Program?

Answer: USGS is presently just gathering information about the printing capabilities in the private sector. What will change is if USGS puts out a Request for Proposal (RFP), to replace the present system. The Depository Library Program and working with libraries is critical to USGS. If USGS puts a new system into place, we will make sure that all of the products that are still printed are available in the Depository Library Program.

CUAC: Frequently, when CRADAs have occurred, things drop out. We don’t hear about CRADAs until after they have been signed.

Answer: CRADAs (Cooperative Research & Development Agreements) are different and usually deal with specific products that we are trying to work on with the private sector. Some CRADA products deal with proprietary information that we cannot really release to the public. If we go out on an RFP for distribution, the outside organization will be taking over or working with USGS to do the printing, distribution, storage, or some aspect of it. They will be taking over or working with USGS. We can certainly control it and make sure that libraries continue to receive information.

CUAC: There is a difference between inks used for maps on demand vs. something coming off of a lithographic press. Is USGS looking into producing materials for the Depository Library Program through a print on demand process?

Answer: As it is right now, when we move more towards The National Map, although that is a little ways off, what we’ll probably end up doing is sending some sort of file to be distributed through the Depository Library Program. There won’t be any hard copy products coming with that digital file. One of the reasons is that the data is continually outdated. The concept of The National Map is that it will be constantly maintained through our partners, so the data that you get one day may be a bit different from the data that is available a month later. Some parts of the country are updated faster than other parts.

CUAC: Regarding the continual updating process of The National Map, what do you have in place regarding archiving of data so that people can view a snapshot of a particular time? Researchers are very interested in looking at older topographic maps to see how land use and land cover have changed over the years. We all have a concern that once The National Map becomes fully functional, 50 years from now there will be a time period of about 20 years that nobody will know what the changes were.

Answer: Archiving is critical for government functions, and it is something that we need to address with The National Map. Right now, I know that there is different methodology and thinking with regard to archiving. For example, with the National Hydrologic Dataset, every time a new piece of data is added, the old data is saved, so that we can go back forever to view the previous data. There are different archiving models being proposed for transportation and other themes. USGS does understand that archiving is important, and we are trying to address it. The data format also has to be updated as well. Data has to be migrated from older storage media to more recent media.

CUAC: The aerial photographs for the 130 cities in The National Map are available for downloading. Are there any plans to get this data into the Depository Library Program?

Answer: What USGS is trying to do is populate The National Map with data. The images that will be put there will be made available to the public. Robin Haun-Mohammed (GPO) described the problems encountered when the Digital Orthophotoquads (DOQs) were in the Depository Library Program (DLP) many years ago. There were errors in the files that had to be corrected, and USGS could not continue to distribute them because of these problems. While GPO would like to see the USGS aerial photography included in the DLP, she would be surprised if that occurs.

T.C. Evans: In terms of the DLP, focus, we are going to want to have these materials available in the FDLP Electronic Collection and the collection of last resort to be sure that they remain available. So perhaps what we need to do is work out a mechanism by which we can introduce them to the collection and bring them under bibliographic control so that they can be found and people know they are available.

CUAC: In many cases, libraries are becoming the site of last resort for archiving data. So if data is not distributed, and data is just made available for downloading, after a while as data is continually updated, we may lose older data. That is our concern. The 1970 Census data is available at Princeton. The Census Bureau is now asking Princeton for that data because they no longer have it. If data is distributed through the Depository Library Program, later on you will have 100 or so libraries with the data. Universities also have storage space and are interested in retaining older data for researchers use. This is a role that libraries in Universities can play. When you have data that you will no longer serve, or when you have new data, it is critical that at least one library in a state gets that data so it is available somewhere outside of Washington, D.C.

Answer: This is obviously a major issue of concern to libraries. If there is a way that CUAC can bring this up as a separate topic with USGS, we could address some of your concerns specifically and what we might be able to do. Keven Roth would be a better person to address these issues and our direction regarding these issues.

CUAC: You spoke about the publications warehouse where Open-File Reports can be downloaded. What format is the data of these Open-Files?

Answer: We are scanning at 400dpi as TIFF uncompressed, then compressed using LizardTech DjVu compression software. What USGS is doing with the Open-Files is getting a record of them up on the Internet so that they can be found. A lot of them have not yet been scanned and put into a digital format. USGS is in the process of scanning them. The hope is that this will be done within the next year. The other thing that we are doing is cleaning out all of the older Open-Files. Open-Files are supposed to be a 5-year temporary storage for products before they are officially published in one of our series. So we are going ahead and getting them scanned, cleaning out the older ones, and getting them online. That should be done this year. When that is done, as to what format they will be in, I am not sure. The scanning is being done from paper and mylar, rather than fiche. USGS focus at present is the report-style Open-Files rather than the maps.

CUAC: As part of The National Map Distribution Concept, when someone orders a map you output a 500 dpi file. What is the reason for deciding on that resolution?

Answer: USGS has run a series of tests where we’ve taken a lithographic map and scanned them at various resolutions. What we have found is that for the storage and printing technology available, for 99% of the graphic products available, 500 dpi works fairly well. Some maps with closely spaced contours or high density areas might require a higher resolution, so they will be produced at a higher resolution. It is based upon a random sample of scanning graphics at various resolutions. When we ran the tests, this resolution was best for the printers and technology that we had available. This gives the best quality at the smallest file size possible.   (Submitted by Linda Zellmer)

Carol Brandt (carol.brandt@bts.gov)

Geospatial Information Program Manager

   Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS)

BTS worked extensively on Geospatial One Stop (GOS) this past year. The Department of the Interior is the lead federal agency for GOS, an E-government initiative found at http://www.geo-one-stop.gov/index.html. USDOT is the lead agency for the transportation theme for the NSDI (National Spatial Data Infrastructure) and GOS, with BTS playing a large role in the USDOT work on GOS. Since last spring, BTS completed four data content standards for GOS: roads, railroads, transit and air. These four modal standards are part of a draft comprehensive standards document that was submitted to ANSI on September 30, 2003; draft standards for all seven themes can be found at: www.geo-one-stop.gov/Standards/index.html. All GOS standards will need some changes and improvements before being finalized.

From the beginning DOI encouraged non-Federal participation in the standards process, and USDOT/BTS was quite successful in engaging the transportation geospatial community in the effort. USDOT is developing a pilot proof-of-concept portal to implement the road standard developed through the GOS process, but because it was developed behind a firewall, so far this portal has been demonstrated to interested parties via screen shots and screen cameras only.

The comprehensive data portal for GOS is at http://www.geodata.gov/ and includes a wide range of features and data. The pilot proof-of-concept portal regarding implementing road standards will eventually translate data from local schemas to the nationally recognized transportation content standard. The broader GOS goal is to enable the user to seamlessly view and obtain geographic data that are stored and maintained by independent organizations, without having to know the details of how the data are stored and maintained by the independent data organizations. Eventually the geodata.gov site will allow users to pull data, as well as harvesting accompanying metadata, and put it onto individual desktops.

Geospatial products efforts from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) include:

Freight Analysis Framework (FAF, found at http://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/freight_analysis/faf/index.htm), a source of static maps which integrates various data sources to estimate commodity flows and freight transportation activity among states regions, and major international estimates. FAF estimates and forecasts are currently available for 1998, 2010, and 2020, and the web site includes freight transportation profiles for each state.

Scenic Byways Initiative, a collaborative project found at http://www.byways.org/, serves to recognize, preserve, and enhance selected roads (not interstates) throughout the United States. Certain roads are recognized as All-American Roads or National Scenic Byways based on one or more archaeological, cultural, historic, natural, recreational, and scenic qualities. On the website, photos of the route are available, and maps showing Scenic Byway travel routes can be created. In addition, the site has a request form for a free map of the 96 “America’s Byways” routes.

National Traffic and Road Closure Information site at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/trafficinfo/index.htm lists country-wide information on road construction, weather, real-time traffic conditions, and links to state departments of transportation.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has mounted the National Hazardous Materials Route Registry at http://hazmat.fmcsa.dot.gov/ which provides the most current listing of the national network of Prescribed, Restricted, and HRCQ Radioactive truck routes. In order to view routes contained in the registry, the user must apply for access. Once access is granted, users may login using their email address and an assigned password. Please note that all Internet activity will be logged.

Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) maintains two rail networks (based on cartographic scale and attributes), as well as a database of Amtrak stations and attributes both available for download from the BTS mapping center, NTAD 2003 Download Center (http://transtats.bts.gov/mappingcenter.asp). The FRA’s Office of Safety Analysis reporting site at http://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/OfficeofSafety/ includes some interactive mapping capability. Visitors to this site have access to railroad safety information including accidents and incidents, inspections and highway-rail crossing data. From this site users can run dynamic queries, download a variety of safety database files, publications and forms, and view current statistical information on railroad safety. Government workers are currently in the field collected GPS information on rail beds for the FRA. This information is being integrated into the existing rail network to improve the positional accuracy.

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA), in partnership with BTS, is engaged in an analysis of transit systems and population figures to encourage greater public transit ridership. The National Transit GIS will include geographic information based on state, county, city and town, urbanized areas, and other political boundaries. Streets, municipal buildings, hospitals, schools, etc., will be represented as well as rivers, streams, lakes, and parks. The spatially referenced data base will provide such transit planning and operations data as population served, ridership, passenger miles and route/rail miles for all modes of public transit. Information about this planned initiative is found at http://www.fta.dot.gov/library/technology/GIS/TGIS/TGIS.HTM.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), at <http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/> has made available on-line mapping of accidents to county level, using data from the Fatal Accident and Reporting System (FARS). At this time, there continue to be problems with accessing the data.

Within the Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA), the Office of Pipeline Safety has developed the Pipeline Integrity Management Mapping Application (PIMMA) for use by pipeline operators and Federal, state, and local government officials. The application contains sensitive pipeline critical infrastructure information, and would-be users need to contact the Office of Pipeline Safety for permission to access the database. After some investigation, most users will be notified they can use the system. Further information is on the website, at http://www.npms.rspa.dot.gov/data/who_access.htm

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) website at http://www.faa.gov/ includes an airport status interactive map link to check airport delays across the country. Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs) are also on the FAA web site.

The website of the Geographic Information Services section of BTS,   http://www.bts.gov/programs/geographic_information_services/, links to the transportation spatial data activities of the section. Along with its Geospatial One Stop work and its participation in the FGDC, BTS serves geospatial data through the National Transportation Atlas Databases (NTAD). BTS is also working with the DOT Center for Climate Change and Environmental Forecasting on a Gulf Coast study to evaluate the effects to transportation infrastructure if sea level rise is caused by climate change. USDOT/BTS and the Census Bureau are collaborating on a census transportation planning package. Data resulting from this collaboration will include tabulations by place of residence, place of work, and the flows between the resident and work. The web application for this project is in development and should be online by the end of fiscal year 2003/2004. The BTS website also links to a mapping center at http://transtats.bts.gov/mappingcenter.asp

In another data development partner ship, BTS and FHWA are collaborating on geocoding the National Bridge Inventory (NBI). The NBI is a tabular database of bridge attributes, including physical characteristics and condition. BTS is adding geocoding and additional tabular data to the database; 79% of the bridges have been geocoded so far. The two agencies are uncertain whether the final geocoded data will be released to the general public. The tabular data on bridges (without gecoding) is currently available to the public from FHWA. (Submitted by Mary McInroy)

Betsy Kanalley

US National Forest Service

Betsy Kanalley (Banas), Staff Cartographer from the US National Forest
Service (NFS) began her presentation with an update of recent NFS activities. These include work on the National Map (the Forest Service is taking the lead regarding the
vegetation coverage layer), remote-sensing issues with other governments
(particularly in the area of forest fires), and preparations for the
celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Forest Service.

Betsy explained that the Forest Service map production facilities are
dispersed throughout their 9 Regions in the US. NFS has been attempting
to set standards regarding map format, colors, layout, and content. New
specifications for symbology have been issued.

There has been an effort to privatize some of the current mapping jobs at
NFS. The Regions have come under closer fiscal management recently
because NFS failed a Government Accounting Office (GAO) audit. GAO
encouraged the Service to do more internal collaboration, and increase the
amount of information being distributed via the web.

Regarding the Healthy Forest Initiative, the Forest Service is
concentrating its efforts on 4 threats: Fire and fuel, invasive species,
loss of open space, and unmanaged recreation (such as off-highway vehicle
use).

Betsy explained that NFS is not receiving extra money for fighting fires,
so those funds are being taken from other areas.

The Geospatial Service and Technology Center (GSTC) in Salt Lake City has
been concentrating its efforts on services not products. It is providing
data to the Regions for their maps; this data is taken from all areas of
the Service and is being converted to a common set of Geographic
Information System (GIS) standards. The data is being used to make better
maps and improve planning decisions. Also, the Regions have been able to
use the data to provide information to and meet the needs of the general
public. The Remote Sensing Application Center & Geospatial Service and
Technology Center has mounted some of its data on the web at:
http://fsgeodata.fs.fed.us/

NFS has launched http://recreation.gov.  In connection with the Bureau of
Land Management (BLM), this portal allows users to discover information
about recreational opportunities on NFS and BLM lands. (Submitted by Chris Thiry)

John Hébert, Chief, Geography and Map Division

Library of Congress

Collecting Cartographic Data in the Digital Age

Dr. Hébert opened his remarks by sharing that LC G&M Division is facing all of the same problems and frustrations as other libraries and agencies where digital cartographic and other geospatial data is concerned. He denoted these efforts as a “challenge” and one in which we all need to be working closely together on so that the digital cartographic record is not lost as time goes on. The people working with this material in LC G&M Division are in its Cartographic GIS Unit, which has as its first priority Congressional Cartography; that is serving the members of Congress and their requests, especially for matters referred to as “born digital” geospatial data, in the cataloging team, and in the acquisitions group. The Division also uses its normal acquisition’s channels to identify digital cartographic data but as of this moment is not archiving those data. Beyond that, the Congressional Cartography Program Unit is struggling to collect, preserve, disseminate, and provide access to digital forms of cartographic and geospatial data as we all are.

Because of what Dr. Hébert sees as an urgent need in terms of communication between and amongst those libraries that participate in the collecting and disseminating of digital cartographic data, he offered the Library of Congress as a host site for a meeting of some sort to move initiatives forward. Ironically, this very idea, based primarily on the “Map Libraries in Transition” meeting hosted and sponsored by the Library of Congress in 1993, was discussed at the Cartographic Users Advisory Council’s (CUAC) business meeting the previous day, with a host site being a major factor in organizing such a meeting. After some discussion and a couple of questions posed to Dr. Hébert, members of CUAC unanimously agreed to accept this offer from the Library of Congress, for a Conference to be held sometime in 2005, preferably around the usual CUAC meeting time of late April/early May. Incoming CUAC chair-elects Bruce Obenhaus and Linda Zellmer will communicate with Dr. Hébert and attempt to set meeting dates based in part on the availability of meeting space(s) at the Library of Congress as soon as possible.

Dr. Hébert also noted that Gary Fitzpatrick, the head of the Cartographic GIS Unit, renamed the Congressional Cartography Program, retired in early April 2004. In June 2003 two new individuals were hired for the Program, and efforts continue to properly outfit that Program with necessary software and hardware required to facilitate their work for Congress. Those individuals are Virginia Ginny Mason and Jacob Zonn. Efforts to allow the staffing of the vacant Digital Specialist Position that Gary Fitzpatrick held are being pursued.

Other News:

A. The budget for the Library of Congress will remain flat at best for the coming fiscal year, meaning that this exacerbates problems related to personnel, collections, and all other operations for the Geography and Map Division.

B. The LC G&M Division’s relationship with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), (formerly the National Imagery and Mapping Agency) remains strong and active, as both continue to share cartographic cataloging data, especially related to sheet level control of map sets. The NGA, over the years, has been developing an online graphic interface to its collections, which will be linked to bibliographic records for use by patrons. This mirrors a similar (and perhaps competitive) effort underway at the British military establishment to provide online access to set and single map holdings. This is accomplished by employing a graphic interface arranged to allow coordinate searching for cartographic data. LC G&M Division is seeking to use existing proven efforts as it seeks to provide improved access (outside of the LC) to its individual set map sheet holdings. CUAC member Paige Andrew shared a similar effort undertaken at the Pennsylvania State University more than a year ago in which online map indexes were created for several map sets held by the Earth & Mineral Sciences Library’s map collection which are not only linked to the bibliographic record but are also separately cataloged plus linked from the individual sheet title or number back to the bibliographic record. Penn State’s general Map Collection also is providing links to static online map indexes to their map sets via the bibliographic record.

C. LC G&M completed the purchase of Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map in May 2003, after a nearly four-year fund raising effort. This is the first map that uses the name “America” to mean the continent in the Western Hemisphere, making it an extremely important and valuable addition to the collections. A valuable companion piece to the 1507 world map, the equally rare 1516 Carta Marina (world nautical chart) prepared by Martin Waldseemüller, which appeared in the same portfolio in which the 1507 map appeared, was acquired separately in November 2003 by Mr. Jay Kislak, Miami Lakes, Florida. For several centuries both works, along with globe gores prepared by Johann Schoner, had been retained as a unit in the collections of Johannes Waldberg-Wolfegg in Germany and the historical cartography field was concerned that their separation would be a tragedy. Mr. Kislak has now, in February 2004, donated his entire collection of early American contact materials (maps, manuscripts, rare books, and pre-Colombian artifacts including the valuable Carta Marina) to the Library of Congress, thus reuniting these cartographic gems once again. The 1507 Waldseemüller world map was displayed in the Library of Congress from July through November 2003 as part of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Exhibition and plans are underway for the permanent display of the 1507 world map in a prominent location in the Library’s Jefferson Building.

D. In 2001 LC G&M Division discovered that it owned the most comprehensive group of individual sheets of the first manuscript technical survey map set of Japan in its holdings (207 of 214 sheets), created by Inoh Tadataka, who is revered in Japan. Inoh Tadataka is considered the “father” of modern mapmaking in Japan and the uncovering and discovery of his maps in G&M by the president of the Inoh Tadataka Society in March 2001 set off much excitement in Japan. The Division had cataloged the entire series by the early 1990s, but the series’ significance in Japanese map history was only brought home clearly within the past three years. These maps were created between 1800 and 1822, and the only other extant holdings are in Japan, and a small number in England, though not nearly as complete as those at LC G&M. Dr. Hébert was invited to Japan in April to give formal presentations on the LC G&M collections and the Inoh maps at the Geographical Survey Institute, the Japan Walking Society, the Tokyo National Museum, the National Diet Library, and at the Kobe City Museum and was involved in news conferences on the matter of Inoh’s maps at the Geographical Survey Institute (in Tsukuba) and the National Diet Library. The Geography and Map Division undertook a project to preserve and digitize all of the sheets in its possession of the set, sharing the digital data with Japan (Japan Map Center, Tokyo, the outlet for the production of the Japanese Geographical Survey Institute). An exhibit based on the Inoh maps, which includes both original manuscript sheets from the Library of Congress and facsimile reproductions of sheets, is making the rounds at 16 venues in Japan from April 16, 2004-January 23, 2005.

E. Over the past eighteen months a project to re-house and re-label folders in the Title collection into archivally-approved folders has taken place. Over 68,000 state sheet maps out of approximately 150,000 total, have been re-housed so far, with the hope that this project will be completed about this time in 2005.

F. The Library of Congress is still under an indefinite hiring freeze, and therefore several key positions remain unfilled in the Geography and Map Division.

G. The Digital Mapping Program is still going strong, and the copyright “barrier” has been determined to be 1870 to date for non-US copyrights and pre-January 1, 1923 for US Copyright. Thus, the Division continues to work primarily with pre-copyrighted materials or US governmental mapping in their projects. The Division is also seeking to share cataloging data for all materials created and/or digitized in the Program, both sharing out to others and seeking to receive bibliographic records from other institutions to use in-house. Two recently-completed scanning projects include:

a.         1:250,000 India series (316 sheets)

b.         A multiple sheet WWII series of maps that show the day-to-day situation in

            Western Europe from D-Day 1944 to VE Day 1945 (416 sheets)

Maps in the above series are scanned and mounted on the Web as enhanced TIFF files compressed using a wavelet-based image compressing software and includes an online index sheet and accompanying metadata for the India series.

An old Army Map Service series of Vietnam at 1:50,000 is being scanned.

H. Dr. Hébert shared a concern regarding usage of the LC G&M facilities. He noted that GIS data from such disciplines/research areas as the Environment, Health, Human-Social Interactions, etc. is in constant demand and yet the Division doesn’t always have needed GIS datasets on hand. Therefore, LC G&M also must sometimes go out to purchase or attempt to purchase much needed datasets, particularly for Congressional requests, or make the decision that they are unable to do so and invite the interested party to seek other means to acquire the needed data. This is yet another frustrating circumstance, and he offered a suggestion towards a shared GIS data repository, noting that this is also what the Government Printing Office is looking towards doing. He praised the GPO effort that is underway.

I. The MrSID graphic compression software, used in LC G&M Division since the inception of its scanning program will be replaced by JPEG2000. This move was made due to prohibitive costs associated with the MrSID software license. Testing of JPEG2000 in LC began in the fall of 2003. The Division plans to convert all holdings currently in the MrSID format into JPEG2000 as soon as monies are located to undertake such a project, in the meantime all current and future scanning efforts will be using JPEG2000 software.   (Submitted by Paige Andrew)

T.C. Evans, Deputy Superintendent of Documents

Government Printing Office

Handouts: 1)    Prepared Statement Before the Committee on House Administration, U.S. House of Representatives on the Transformation of the U.S. Government Printing Office to Meet the Demands of the 21st Century, Wednesday, April 28, 2004 by Bruce R. James, Public Printer of the United States

                   2) Keeping America Informed in the 21st Century: A First Look at the GPO Strategic Planning Process “A Work in Progress”, May 1, 2004 by Bruce R. James, Public Printer of the United States

T.C. Evans

This is the first CUAC meeting that T.C. has attended. He expressed his appreciation for the opportunity to learn about our Council and what we do.

In providing us a little history, he stated that the Depository program began in 1813 to distribute government information and place it in the hands of those who could provide access and preservation. Most recently, Bruce James has taken over at the Public Printer and asked for a mission statement that would not use the term ‘printing.’ The program is now about information and dissemination.

In the past year there has been a transition at the GPO. There has been a reorganization of all departments to a functional structure that will best serve dissemination of government information. They have moved from a stovepipe program to a functional one. It is requiring a lot of cooperation.

T.C. outlined four points under Program Planning and Coordination. 1) Library Program Planning 2) National Bibliography 3) Cost Recovery (Sales and International Exchange) and 4) Collections Management.

Library Program Planning deals with Education and Development. The Inspection program will be replaced with regional consultants who will work with depositories in their regions and share best practices. This area also deals with content development for GPO Access.

The National Bibliography Program Planning is being directed by Gil Baldwin, who has attended many CUAC meetings in the past. The program will develop policy and planning for all of GPO’s metadata and cataloging efforts and coordinate the development of bibliographic program direction and scope.

In the area of cost recovery, GPO is attempting to deal with the situation caused by most publications now being available online. Money formerly generated by the GPO Sales Program has diminished by $50 million, and ways of making up for this loss are being explored.

Collections Management will look at the possibility of establishing shared depository responsibilities among depository libraries. A Collection of Last Resort is being developed that will include all retrospective print publications as well as growing into the future for tangible products. This collection will also include print copies of digital products. During the past year GPO was named a NARA affiliate for archiving electronic government information.

New emphasis is being placed on authenticity of electronic publications, version control and permanent public access. Planning continues for the future of the depository library program.

Robin Haun-Mohamed, Development Project Manager

Government Printing Office

Robin thanked us for inviting her to our Council meeting. As a Development Project Manager, Robin will be managing the 2.2 million items in the legacy collection (Collection of Last Resort). She expressed her interest in being a part of the Map Libraries in the Future meeting that has been discussed in our meeting today.

Robin announced recent retirements and new assignments of staff at GPO we were all likely to know. Sheila McGarr has retired to Maine. Willy Thompson is retired, his responsibilities for meeting coordination being taken over by Nick Ellis, who managed the St. Louis Depository Library Council meeting. George Barnum has moved to Innovations and New Technology. Laurie Hall has been appointed director of Bibliographic Services in the Collection Management Service. Selene Dalecky has been selected a Development Project Manager.

Robin stated that we need to continue our education and outreach efforts. There needs to be some re-education every time someone new comes on board.

There is significant emphasis being placed on digitization and preservation under the new reorganization. GPO is working with ARL and others on prioritized lists of titles that need to be scanned and preserved. Several groups are working on prioritized lists developed from library community input. These lists will be narrowed down and then compiled and shared at upcoming conferences.

On March 12, 2004 there was a meeting of experts on digital preservation as the first activity in an initiative with the federal depository library community to digitize the entire legacy collection of U.S. government documents currently held in depositories. The intent is to ensure that the collection is digitally reformatted for preservation purposes and that access copies are derived from the digitized preservation copies. For report see http://www.gpoaccess.gov/about/reports/preservation.pdf.

There is a meeting planned for sometime in June on metadata standards, the results of which will be shared at upcoming conferences.

The Collection of Last Resort is not addressing maps at this point. They will come back to maps. The emphasis has been just to get this effort started now.

There will be a digital registry on the GPO web site. It has not yet been decided exactly how this will be done. There is currently a list maintained on the GODORT site by GITCO. GPO is also talking to OCLC. They are hoping that funding agencies that might be funding digitization efforts will require, as condition of a grant, that the project be put on the registry so that redundancy can be prevented. The list may not be limited to projects digitizing federal material.

A working group of the Interagency Committee on Government Information (ICGI) is working on a definition of government information. This is being done as part of the mandate in the E-Government Act of 2002 (PL 107-347) 44 U.S.C. Ch. 36) which addresses various aspects of Federal management and promotion of electronic government services. See <www.gpoaccess.gov/cgiwg/> The draft definition and invitation for comments is at www.gpoaccess.gov/cgiwg/pdf/cgiwgroup/revMay2004.pdf

Robin asked that CUAC advise them on specification for workstations for cartographic data. Wangyal Shawa is the new CUAC contact for specifications.

Robin responded to a    question about the Latin America maps that had been discussed from NGA. At last year’s CUAC meeting it was decided to conduct a survey to determine libraries that wanted to select these maps. Robin said she would talk to Michael Cooley about this. (Submitted by Donna Koepp)

Marian Brady, Data Access and Dissemination

U.S. Bureau of the Census

The Data Access and Dissemination System Office (DADSO) program provides a gateway into the data with a common interface and application. The Internet has helped a lot in disseminating the census data. For the first time, the Census was able to publish the complete result of a decennial census over the Internet. This has enabled the general public to get full access to the 2000 census data.

The program has built complementary online mapping tools that have the capability to create referenced and thematic maps of all the statistical, legal, and political boundaries. The program also deals with tabulation and dissemination of the tabulated data. In 2004 and 2005 they will be tabulating the 109 congressional districts. All the tabulated decennial data are disseminated through the decennial census summary data program. In addition, they conduct annual online surveys to create American Community Survey Data. They also publish population estimate data although they are not the primary dissemination department. The program also publishes economic census and survey results.

They also did other projects such as congressional web site (http://fastfacts.census.gov/home/cws/main.html) specially designed for congressional needs, AIAN data and links page consist of all the American Indian and native data, Census 2000 Gateway (http://www.census.gov/main/www/cen2000.html), Advanced query tools, 1990 Gateway (http://www.census.gov/main/www/cen1990.html), and Census 2000 Island Areas Gateway (http://census.gov/population/www/cen2000/islandareas.html).

DADSO’s American Fact Finder (AFF) has new content. The complete 2002 economic census data includes zip code statistics on the state side and also includes Island areas. The other new content on the AFF are 2002 economic surveys that included an annual non-employer statistic survey, the survey of business owners and business expenses that are done every five years. They have also added some extra functions such as FTP access, and product quick reports as well as improved download capabilities.

The future of DADSO is to integrate the dissemination system because there are over 300 disseminators and 95% of them are part time, which results in unnecessary redundancy and complexity. To design an effective dissemination system, DADSO needs to understand the view of data users who may have opposite views from data providers. DADSO therefore, designed a site that allows users to navigate based on subject, geography, derived products, fact sheet, and others.    (Submitted by Wangyal Shawa)

Reports from Agencies unable to attend the meeting in person:

David Smith

The Geographic Information Unit (GIU), within the

Department of State's Office of the Geographer and Global Issues.

The Department of State's Office of the Geographer and Global Issues, through its Geographic Information Unit (GIU), is responsible by Congressional directive for disseminating policy on the depiction of international boundaries and on sovereignty issues for all U.S. government cartographers. The GIU creates and provides cartographic products, mostly to accompany analytical reports within the Department of State. The GIU is also active in the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, particularly in the Board's Foreign Names Committee, which standardizes all foreign place names for U.S. government use.

Currently the GIU consists of four staff with two more "borrowed" from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA, formerly NIMA). Of the original four staff members, two are cartographers. Because of the small size of the GIU, the unit is something of a "boutique" producer of cartographic products and data. Almost all of the geospatial data use to produce maps in GIU is from either NGA or the CIA's Cartography Center. The GIU does produce some original data sets or, more often, modifies NGA data for internal purposes that are tailored to specific studies or projects in the Department rather than for more general application. Most of the original data produced is thematic and ephemeral in nature (i.e. rebel-controlled areas or refugee camps in a given country), and because the GIU is housed in the intelligence branch of the State Department, much of their cartographic work is classified and therefore not publicly available. Thus the GIU produces very little in the way of data or cartographic products for distribution outside the State Department.

GIU contacts: Leo Dillon, DillonLI@state.gov

David Smith, SmithDG@state.gov

From an April 28 e-mail from Davis Smith (Submitted by Mary McInroy)

Bill Jackson

Bureau of Land Management (BLM)

I spoke with Bill Jackson Chief, Branch of Cartographic Applications, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), National Science & Technology Center in Denver, Colorado . He oversees the production of all BLM 1:100,000 Surface/Mineral Management, and 1:500,000 and 1:1,000,000 state land management maps. He reported that his office is in the midst of a streamlined, A-76 (outsourcing) review of what his group does and how much it costs. Basically, BLM is studying them to determine if the private sector can provide what they do cheaper. The group currently employs 9 people (down from over 40 fifteen years ago). Cartographic Applications is the only group at the BLM targeted for possible outsourcing this current fiscal year.

Funding remains a problem for Cartographic Applications; it has been unfunded for years. No single Bureau program (cost activity) funds the group, which is the standard process. Instead NSTC management has convinced the Bureau that his group's maps benefit all programs, and thus BLM is able scrape a small percentage off the top of every activity. Not all programs like this formula, but it is the way that the group is

operating, at least for this year. They are waiting to see what happens next year.

The number of map revision requests is actually on the rise, but that does not necessarily mean that production is up. All requests for revisions to the 1:100,000 surface/mineral management maps come from the BLM state offices. Cartographic Applications is a small shop and is maxed out on the production end. Production is currently at about 70-75 1:100,000 map revisions annually.

The surface/mineral management maps are being translated into a digital format as they revised. At this time, BLM is not putting this data onto the web. This is a large issue and Cartographic Applications is not currently equipped to handle this task. At this time, while Bill's group has complete digital coverage of 1/3rd of the western US, as a

production shop, it is difficult to find the necessary resources to serve the digital information onto a website. There are numerous resource, funding and political issues involved in this decision. Also, there is little interest in making that data available via the web.

Cartographic Applications recently printed a digital revision of the Nevada 1:500,000 state map late last year (it came through on the Depository System). The group is currently in the process of digitally revising the New Mexico 1:500,000 state map; this should be complete late this fiscal year. They are also in the process of revising a wall map of the western US that shows BLM lands and administrative boundaries, including

BLM national conservations lands, wilderness area, monuments, wild and scenic rivers, and other NLCS lands. It is hoped this will be finished in the near future but it has some bureaucratic obstacles to get over.

Cartographic Applications remains stymied visa-a-vis maps produced by state and local BLM offices. The NSTC is never aware of many Bureau maps produced at state and field offices. Many of these maps do not meet Bureau or even general cartographic standards. All Bureau state offices have the authority to make their own maps but they should meet cartographic and Bureau standards. These maps are supposed to go to the

group so it can work on them, make sure they meet standards, and ensure the maps are distributed. Seldom are these items provided to the group--the maps remain fugitive documents. If they happen to stumble across one, then Cartographic Applications tries to acquire it. BLM's 1:100,000 surface/mineral management maps continue to be good sellers (via USGS sales). BLM map sales at the USGS map distribution outlet in Denver Colorado, regularly out perform USGS 1:100,000 topographic maps because the BLM maps are typically more up-to-date and also have surface ownership on the maps in addition to all of the regular USGS base information. The addition of recreation symbols to the BLM maps has increased the maps usefulness and popularity. (Submitted by Chris Thiry)

Respectfully submitted,

David Deckelbaum

Co-Chair, Cartographic Users Advisory Council

General Meeting - Federal Agencies Presentations