|
|
|
|
General
Meeting - Annual Federal Agencies Presentations
FY 2007 FY 2006 FY 2005 FY 2004
CARTOGRAPHIC USERS ADVISORY COUNCIL
(CUAC) 2006 MEETING MINUTES May
4-5, 2006 George
Washington Carver Center/USDA
CUAC Members: Joe Aufmuth, Michael Fry, Katie Lage, Mary McInroy, Clara P. McLeod, Bruce Obenhaus, Virginia Tech, Anita Oser, SLA,
Social Science Division, G&M Daniel T. Seldin, Joy Suh, Thelma Thompson, Linda Zellmer, Agency Presenters: Christine Clarke, introductory
remarks George
Rohaley, National
Remote Sensing Leader, USDA-NRCS Susan J. DeLost, Program Manager, Geospatial
Services, Dr.
Brett L. Abrams, Electronic
Records Archivist (
Working Group/FGDC Bob Bewley, Senior Geographer, Bureau of Land Management Carol Brandt, Geospatial Information Program
Manager, Bureau of Transportation Statistics/DOT Gregory J Allord, Science Information and
Education Office, Geological Survey Michael P. McDermott, National Coordinator, Natural Science Network, Geological Survey William R. “Bill” Effland, Soil
Scientist, USDA/NRCS Soil Survey
Division Tim Trainor, Assistant Division Chief for
Geographic Areas and Cartographic Data Products, Geography Division Robin L.
Haun-Mohamed,
Director, Collection Mgmt & Preservation, GPO Ted
Preibe, Director,
Library Planning & Development, GPO Dr. John R. Hébert, Chief, Geography and Map
Division, Library of Congress Submitted Written
Agency Report: Department
of Energy Federal
Agency Presentations Schedule Thursday
PM, 4 May, beginning 1:15 PM 1:15—Welcome,
introductions, (remarks by Christine Clarke, NCRS) 1:30-- Remote sensing/NRCS, George
Rohaley 2:00--USFS, Susan DeLost 2:30-- 3:00--BLM, Bob
Bewley 3:30, closing remarks and thank
yous to agencies
Friday,
May 5, 2006, beginning 9AM 9:00-- Welcome, introductions,
last-minute preparations 9:15-- BTS, Carol Brandt 9:45—USGS, Greg Allord
and Mike McDermott 10:30-10:45--break 10:45--Soil Survey/NRCS, Bill
Effland 11:30--CENSUS, Tim Trainor LUNCH—USDA
cafeteria 1:00--GPO, Robin L.
Haun-Mohamed and Ted Priebe 1:45--LC/G&M, John
Hébert 2:30, closing remarks and thank
yous to agencies
Chris
begins by explaining that she is with the Natural Resources Conservation
Service (NRCS), one of roughly 27 organizational units in the USDA.
USDA has over 100,000 staff and NRCS, Farm and Service Agency and Rural
Development are considered the 3 field based agencies, meaning that they have
staff in almost every county in the nation. NRCS changed its name from
the Soil Conservation Service in 1994, and before that they were the Soil
Erosion Service (1935) under the DOI. Their purpose at that time was to
mediate and minimize the negative impacts of the dust bowl and wind erosion. Today,
the agency focuses on land management, conservation, and working with
farmers, ranchers, and land owners at the local field level. They have
approximately 150 GIS specialists in the field. Some staff are district
conservationists that are using a Customer Service Tool kit (CST), which is
an application built on top of ESRI products like ArcMap. This is a
user friendly interface that can be used in all fifty states to develop farm
plans, view DOQs, or aerial photos. Other GIS users work more with raw data
and support CST users. The agency is also involved in the Federal Geographic
Data Committee (FGDC) Geo-spatial One Stop, and the Geo-spatial Line of
Business (GeoLOB). Brief
Q&A period: 1.
Do you think that the government will go to a more centralized funding
system? Answer:
That’s a possibility, but it’s a challenge to compare GIS
activities across disciplines. Christine welcomes help in building a
foundation for GIS use with standard data sets and infrastructure. Question:
Has the USDA Geospatial Data Gateway limited access to data to non .gov
users? Answer:
Yes, The Gateway was developed to deliver authoritative data to USDA agency
field staff. Due to the
convenience of the data access via the Gateway, non federal use increased
substantially over time. To
ensure non-federal users acquired the most up to date data from the
appropriate sources, outside users are now redirected to the authoritative
data source. In doing so, USDA
does not incur distribution responsibilities for data of which we are not the
authoritative source and users are ensured the most current information. They
only turned off those layers for which they were not the authoritative source
for the data sets (for example, data kept by USGS). Question:
Is there state-wide aerial photography available on the USDA site? Answer:
The most current aerial photography available from USDA can be found at http://www.apfo.usda.gov/
(submitted
by Clara McLeod) George
Rohaley, NRCS-Remote Sensing Leader George
Rohaley’s talk, “Use of Remote Sensing in USDA and NRCS,”
included a brief overview of the use of remote sensing in NRCS, imagery
sources, applications of imagery, USDA image archive and distribution, and
USDA NAIP (National Agricultural Imagery Program), which is one of the
biggest imagery programs in USDA. He also discussed smaller projects that are
specific for NRCS and showed more than 100 slides in the presentation. The
mission of National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) is to help people
conserve, maintain, and improve our natural resources and environment. In
short, NRCS mission is “helping people help the land.” Most
of NRCS’s acquired imagery comes from three sources: Satellites, High
and Low Altitude Airborne cameras and digital sensors. NRCS acquires imagery
for it’s people who work on the ground at the USDA county service
centers (about 3000 offices). The Service Centers have converted from using
analog data to mostly using digital data today. The centers have ArcGIS and
use agency business-oriented tools called “Customer Service
Toolkit.” Orthoimagery is used as a base map for all GIS data layers at
the Service Centers. Most
of the imagery NCRS uses comes from airborne system (film or digital).
Typically the Service Centers prefer airborne images with natural color
because it is visually more relatable to actual ground situations. Recently,
however, USDA contractors are flying more imagery with digital sensors. We
have been told that digital imagery cannot be used in court, attorneys
account for a small demand for film images. Along
with Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), Farm Service Agency (FSA), and
Forest Service (FS), NCRS is one of top four imagery users in USDA. (Others
include National Agricultural Statistical Service (NASS), Risk Management
Agency (RMA), Agricultural Research Service (ARS), and Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service (APHIS).) Applications
of imagery within USDA include agricultural competitiveness, agro-terrorism,
base map, carbon synthesis, compliance, base area, crop monitoring, crop
condition assessment, soil survey, disaster monitoring, drought monitoring,
earning warning, environmental monitoring, fire suppression, homeland
security, resource inventory, invasive species, land use conversion, and
yield monitoring. NRCS focuses on soil survey, crop monitoring, environmental
monitoring, and resource inventory. Satellite
images that NRCS uses primarily come by FAS. FAS has contracted with
companies such as Digital Globe, Earthsat, Eurimage, GeoEye, Space Imaging,
and SPOT to get world wide images. NRCS can gain access to FAS images
(Rohaley showed several slides for 03, 04, 05 LANDSAT acquisitions showing
good coverage of USDA
Image Archive and Distribution: All aerial photographs and digital
imagery acquired by NRCS must be contracted by the USDA Aerial Photography
Field Office (APFO). Located in USDA
Aerial Contract Awards: Most
of these image acquisitions are done based on contract awards. FY2005 contract awards are over 30
million ($ 33,455,497). The
contract awards have substantially increased in the last three years. Most of
the funding (71 %) goes to USDA NAIP. See the Aerial Photography Field Office
(APFO) Web site (http://www.apfo.usda.gov/)
for image status, contracting services, and any other information. USDA
Small Area Photography Contracting: NRCS
has been involved with a small area photography and aerial photographic
contracting project. This project is a five-year contract to acquire very
high resolution imagery (1:4000 to 1:15,840 scale) under a indefinite delivery-indefinite quantity
contract and for specific task orders in smaller areas such as National
Resource Inventory (NRI) sites, which acquires imagery resolution that
results in a ground resolving distance of 2.5 inches. Why is such high
resolution required? Each year, NRI acquires approximately 70,000 sites a
quarter acre in size to do as inventory.
In the past, inventory was site specific, but now it is done primarily
by photographic interpretation techniques. NRCS has specific photographic
periods, mostly in growing seasons. The NRCS contractors update their projects
status every two or three days through the web. Data collection will be done using
remote sensing techniques at three remote sensing laboratories: National
Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP): This
program is USDA’s largest imagery program, acquiring 1 and 2 meter
natural color digital ortho imagery during the agricultural growing season
(summer). NAIP updates 1 meter
resolution images on a 5 year cycle.
Distribution
links for future information and data include: ·
USDA
Aerial Photography Field Office (http://gdw.apfo.usda.gov/naip/viewer)
for NAIP and USDA Aerial Imagery. ·
USDA
Data Gateway (http://datagateway.nrcs.usda.gov/)
for data products packaged by county. ·
Foreign
Agricultural Crop Explorer (http://www.pecad.fas.usda.gov/cropexplorer)
for global image, weather, etc. Digital
Elevation Model (DEM): NRCS
has contracted to acquire DEM data. Most DEM data is in the public domain.
Digital elevation is used for land use planning and soil surveys. When combined with digital ortho
imagery, digital elevation allows updating soil survey mapping on laptops
rather than from the ground (soil survey and DEM will be covered in detail at
tomorrow’s presentation). Imagery
for the Nation Proposal: Everyone
wants imagery: local, regional, state, tribal, and federal governments, as
well as the private sector. There
is a proposal for three distinct programs under imagery for the nation: one
meter, one foot, and six-inch acquisition program--a sort of
infrastructure. The one meter
program, which will be managed by USDA, would enhance the existing NAIP with
the cover of the lower 48 states annually ( Questions/discussion:
CUAC:
What happened to National High Altitude Photography (NHAP) program, DOQs, and
its creation with one meter accuracy? The
NHAP program was replaced by National Aerial Photography Program (NAPP),
which was administrated by USGS.
NAPP is now gone. NAPP
produced the original source of ortho images based on 1:40K scale and mostly
black & white. However, NRCS and most of USDA do not need NAPP product.
NRCS, USDA, and Farm Service Agency also need natural color images.
Therefore, NAPP went to NAIP. The soil survey program still needs leaf-off
images such as black and white, but can get them from archives at the USDA
Aerial Field Office. CUAC:
Is there any back up system for the CD-Rom product in case there is damage
the CDs stored at the USDA Aerial Field Office in CDs
and fire wire drives are used to deliver NAIP items. Now they are on a
server. The products come in
multiple copies, and states which use the images have back-up copies. Film life span is 75 years old. (Submitted by Joy
Suh) Susan J. DeLost, Program Manager, Geospatial
Services, Susan
DeLost, Geospatial Services Program Manager, spoke about “USDA Forest
Service Maps and Other Related Products” on Thursday May 4, 2006. She
began by giving an overview of the land managed by the USFS and the mission
of the USFS. Maps and geospatial data support the activities of the USFS in a
number of areas, including: forest
planning, forest health protection, watershed restoration, fire prevention
& management, and recreation. The USFS participates in interagency
coordination with the FGDC and partners with the USGS, the BLM, and other organizations
(federal, tribal, state, local) to increase efficiency and provide additional
services and products to its customers. Maps
have been an integral part of the USFS activities since the agency’s
establishment in 1905 and are a vital part of managing the national forests
and grasslands. Maps were
initially produced at the local unit level, with little standardization or
consistency. Since the
mid-1970’s, with the establishment of the USFS’ Geospatial
Service and Technology Center (GSTC), the emphasis on standardization has
increased, while still allowing flexibility for local needs. The GSTC works
closely with the agency’s national forest units and Regional Offices to
produce map products, geospatial data and related applications. The GSTC and
the Remote Sensing Applications Center (RSAC) units of the USFS, co-located
in Susan
showed the traditional mapping products produced by the USFS: general maps,
forest visitor maps, topographic maps, and specialty maps and brochures (http://www.fs.fed.us/maps/). She
brought samples of some of these maps to share with the group. They have just
finished updating the map for the brochure, “A Guide to Your National
Forests and Grasslands”, which was last updated in 2000. Another agency
map product is the Forest/Grassland Visitor Map, which has traditionally been
produced at a scale of ½” = 1 mile. Some forests are now producing these
at the 1” = 1 mile scale. In
1992, the USFS entered into an agreement with the USGS to produce a
single-edition 1:24,000 (1:63,360 in The
USFS is a voting member on the Board on Geographic Names (BGN). Betsy Kanalley is the USFS/USDA
representative to the BGN and is the current chair of the BGN’s
Domestic Names Committee. The USFS participates in updating and maintaining
the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS). Susan
discussed and showed the FS Geodata Clearinghouse (http://fsgeodata.sc.egov.usda.gov/),
which provides access to metadata and downloadable data created by the USFS.
She also showed a web-GIS service for active fire mapping, linked from the FS
Geodata Clearinghouse. Susan
also demonstrated a new USFS Geoportal intra-net site, which provides
one-stop shopping for geospatial information for agency employees. The
USFS is working on a number of new geospatial tools and products: the
Geospatial Interface, Carto Tools, MPS Atlas, Print-on-Demand, and additional
web-based data and services. The
Geospatial Interface is essentially an ESRI- ArcMapTM extension
that allows users to easily retrieve, view and use spatial and tabular data
related to their subject area, which are stored in a number of databases
across the agency. Carto
Tools provides map templates for various USFS map products that are included
in documents (e.g., Forest Plan Revisions and others) and publications to
increase the standardization of these products. MPS
Atlas is a project that the USFS is working on with ESRI that will
incorporate the Carto Tools templates into ArcGIS in order to simplify map
production for both standard and unique products. The
Print-on-Demand initiative’s goal is to design and implement a print on
demand web solution for Single Edition Quadrangles. It will first be
implemented internally, with public access planned for the future. The USFS is exploring opportunities to
partner with other service providers, both public and private. This interface
will provide access to standard quadrangles and user-selected areas, but will
not include the vegetation tint.
One goal is to provide more up-to-date data for displaying and
printing maps via a web-based service than is currently possible with the
printed map product. The USFS has
not yet developed an archiving process for this product. Susan suggested that CUAC send a
letter to the FGDC and her about the need to archive this data as it is
updated. (Submitted by Katie
Lage) Dr.
Brett L. Abrams, Electronic
Records Archivist ( Brett
focused his presentation on the activities of the Historical Data Working
Group (HDWP) established by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) to
promote “the awareness of the historical dimension to geospatial data
which have been financed in whole or part by Federal funds” and to
facilitate “maintaining historically valuable geospatial data and
making it available to future generations.” Current membership includes personnel
from USGS’ The
function of The
current standards for the transfer of Currently
the HDWG is pursuing building a community among individuals and organizations
interested in the historical dimension to geographical data, including
maintaining a website with a library of information and a discussion
component available to members.
Future initiatives for the working group include creating a Geospatial
One Stop Portal Community for historical collections such as those at The
following two links provide additional information about the Historical Data
Working Group: Link
to the main page: http://www.fgdc.gov/participation/working-groups-subcommittees/hdwg/index_html Link
to the library page: http://www.fgdc.gov/participation/working-groups-subcommittees/hdwg/folder_contents (Submitted
by Anita K. Oser) Bob Bewley, Senior Geographer, Bureau of Land Management Bob
Bewley, Senior Geographer at the Bureau of Land Management, presented to CUAC
on Thursday May 4, 2006. He spoke about the BLM’s enterprise GIS, the
National Integrated Lands System, national data sets, data sharing, and
showed some examples of BLM maps. The
BLM is the largest land management agency, managing 262 million acres. In
1948 the General Land Office merged with the agency in charge of grazing on
public lands to for the Bureau of Land Management. The BLM’s mandate
comes from the 1976 Federal Lands Policy Act. The
BLM is in the process of creating an enterprise GIS. An enterprise GIS is
defined as, “… a
business-wide GIS that is characterized by standard data, in a transactional
format that allows update, maintenance and use by all levels of the
organization.” The BLM’s enterprise GIS will support
standardized data and serve out core datasets across all levels of the agency
in support of the BLM’s goals. Bob explained that the creation of an
enterprise GIS needs: data standards, software and hardware, telecom support,
the personnel to create and support it, and business/management support. The
BLM is exploring two models of an enterprise Bob
showed CUAC examples of the Land and Mineral Use Records Viewer in NILS. The
national data sets included in NILS are: range allotments, areas of critical
environmental concern, land use planning boundaries, BLM administrative
units, national lands conservation system, surface management agency, oil and
gas leases, mining claims, and geothermal leases. NILS
also includes some USFS data, as the BLM partners with USFS to serve it out.
For example, the Land and Mineral Use Records Viewer displays data about the
recent USFS Rural Schools Conveyance proposal. The BLM’s policy is to
share data between federal agencies and local and state governments.
Bob’s presentation included a list of BLM data administrators by state,
included at the end of these minutes. Bob
then discussed BLM standard maps. The BLM creates 1:100,000 Surface
Management Status maps digitally and prints paper maps. 1:500,000 Surface
Management Status maps are created for all western states. Both of these series
are updated approximately every 7 years. There was a question from CUAC
members about the 1:500,000 maps not coming through the FDLP. Bob suggested
we talk with Bill Jackson. He understood that they should be coming through
the FDLP. Katie (Lage) said she would contact Bill Jackson. Bob showed
examples of both of these standard map series. The
BLM also creates specialized maps such as mining maps, potash area maps, and
oil and gas reserve maps. These specialized maps use the standard BLM line
styles and colors but regional cartographers have more freedom with these
types of maps than with the standard 1:100,000 and 1:500,000 maps. Bob showed
many examples of the variety of specialized maps produced by the BLM. CUAC
members had a question about NILS data being sent out through the FDLP. Bob
said that some of the data sets are proprietary. For the non-proprietary
data, this might be a possibility. He would talk with GPO about this. CUAC
members also inquired if the NILS data is being archived as it is updated and
changed. The NILS data is “versioned” and archived on a quarterly
basis. BLM Data Administrators o o o o o EASTERN STATES John
Douglas, CIO 202-452-1638 o o o o o
o o o o
(Submitted by Katie
Lage) Carol Brandt, Geospatial Information Program
Manager, Bureau of Transportation
Statistics/DOT Carol
spoke on the status of the Geospatial Information Program at BTS. As a result of a February 2005
reorganization, BTS became part of the new Research & Innovative
Technology Administration (RITA) within the US Department of Transportation
(DOT). The BTS Geospatial
Information Program (BTS/GEO) lost funding this past fiscal year and was
forced to discontinue the BTS/GEO
will continue to: produce the annual National Transportation Atlas Databases
(NTAD, a Congressional mandate); provide mapping support to the The
2006 NTAD, due out this summer, will include the usual transportation
datasets, as well as the following new information: Highway Performance Monitoring System
(HPMS); Automatic Traffic Recorder Stations (ATR); Weigh In Motion Stations
(WIM); and Hazardous Materials (HAZMAT) Routes. Also included in NTAD are the
following geographic reference datasets obtained from other agencies:
national populated places, urbanized area boundaries, 109th congressional district boundaries,
county and state boundaries,
hydrographic features, metropolitan statistical area boundaries (all from
Bureau of the Census), national park boundaries (National Park Service),
Metropolitan Planning Organization Boundaries (DOT), non-attainment areas
(EPA/DOT), and military bases (Military Surface Deployment and Distribution
Command, SDDC). These geographic
datasets area way to make the NTAD product a transportation “map in a
box,” so users can add GIS capability to the geographic and numeric
data included and create their own maps. BTS/GEO
provides mapping and analysis support to the Crisis Management Center,
including assistance on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and other emergency
situations, as well as handling special mapping/spatial analysis requests
from Congress and the DOT Secretary, e.g., air traffic hub mapping and
“Annual Rural Airport Analysis” information. Much of this spatial analysis
and information is available internally and on not the web due to the
sensitive nature of the data, e.g., pipeline locations. BTS/GEO
is currently involved with the Geospatial Line of Business (LoB) federal
government initiative. Geospatial
LoB is a new plan for agencies to work together to: identify opportunities to share common
geospatial processes and functions across government; result in a more
coordinated approach to producing, maintaining, and using geospatial data;
ensure sustainable participation from Federal partners to establish a
collaborative model for geospatial-related activities and investments; and
influence the FY08 budget cycle.
Since the GLoB scheme was sent to the agencies in March, much of
Brandt’s time has been spent on determining how best to work with other
agencies to set up and conduct the Geospatial LoB. Until
a few years ago, a number of BTS geospatial information products were
disseminated through the federal depository program, but this is no longer
the case. Brant and GPO
representative Robin Haun-Mohamed plan to discuss this situation soon. New
activities for BTS/GEO include working with National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (NHTSA) on the next generation of E-911 to integrate
geospatial information (the current system does not handle text messaging and
imagery used by some phones); and working with the Federal Highway
Administration (FHWA) on Highway Performance Monitoring System data
collection, as well as promoting the 50th anniversary of the
Eisenhower Interstate Highway System
(see the site at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/homepage.cfm
for more information, including lists of both road songs and road
movies). BTS/GEO continues to
participate in the geospatial aspects of other DOT programs: freight analysis framework, scenic
byways, and road closures (with FHWA); real time airport status, aeronautical
charting, and temporary flight restrictions (with the FAA); Fatality Analysis
Reporting System (with NHTSA); maintenance of the geospatial data distributed
through NTAD (with FRA, the Federal Railroad Administration); programs to
encourage greater transit ridership (with FTA, the Federal Transit
Administration); and hazardous materials programs (with FMCSA, the Federal
Motor Carrier Safety Administration). The
National Transportation Library, located within the BTS and billed as
“… a virtual library for the transportation community,” was
also affected by the budget cuts.
Current plans call for maintaining the digital portion of the
Library’s mission, but eliminating collection development, cataloging, and
library reference services. The
Library will continue its partnership with the Transportation Research Board
(TRB) to produce Transportation Research
Information Services (TRIS) Online. The TRIS Database
is the world's largest and most comprehensive bibliographic resource on
transportation information. TRIS
contain over 600,000 records of published and ongoing research covering all
modes and disciplines of transportation. In addition, the National
Transportation Library plans to coordinate with transportation libraries
around the country to leverage past work on a union catalog, a “system
of libraries.” This work
was spearheaded by the current head of the library, who will leave that
position in a few weeks, so the future of this initiative is unclear. It is possible that the Library could
move up into RITA, resulting in the receipt of more funding. Contact
information: Carol Brandt (carol.brandt@dot.gov) Web
Sites for Further Information: Research & Innovative Technology
Administration (RITA): http://www.rita.dot.gov/ BTS/GEO: http://www.bts.gov/programs/geographic_information_services/
National Transportation Library, http://ntl.bts.gov/ (Submitted by Mary McInroy) Gregory
J Allord,
Science Information and Education Office,
and Michael P. McDermott, National
Coordinator, Natural Science
Network, Geological Survey The
USGS has been transitioning for a while. It is now divided into disciplines
such as geology, geography, water, etc. The Geospatial Information Office
(GIO), oversees information activities including the library, publishing and
information dissemination activities. For the first time in the history of
the USGS, these activities have been centralized in the same group. Within
the Science Information and Education office of the GIO is the Natural
Science Network, Publishing, E-Web (the USGS’ enterprise web activities)
and education. These groups are working on combining their activities. The
Library is now part of the Natural Science Network. The
vision of the Natural Science Network (NSN) is to be a nationally linked network of USGS data,
information, and knowledge available to anyone, anywhere, anytime. The NSN
has several components, including the knowledge management, information
delivery and Science Information and Library Services. The Knowledge Network
is where information is created. The concept of the knowledge network is that
everything the USGS does is part of the Knowledge Network. The knowledge is
owned by the Science Programs (Biology, Geology, GIO, Water, Geography &
Science Support). The work of the Natural Science Network is to bring the information
together through network activities and make it accessible to the public. The
USGS does this through their information services activities, which brings
together the Library, information services and distribution. The Network is
made up of the people and the tools to get the information out to the public.
The USGS is interested in comments on their services and information. SILS, Science Information and Library Services,
includes Library Services, Information Services (which are the old Earth
Science Information Centers (ESICs)) and the call center. The idea for this
structure originated in a 2002 directive from the former USGS director Chip
Groat. It combines two different cultures, libraries and information
services. USGS is still working to combine these two cultures. The
information service group has existed for nearly 50 years, and includes
entities that existed before ESICs. Information services is the organized
effort to handle inquiries (USGS receives about 400,000 inquiries a year),
from telephone, e-mail and visitors. Responding to these inquiries will
continue, but it will not be a function of the library. The reference
librarian’s activities overlap the information service. USGS is looking
for models of how to implement the combined Library and Information Service. Knowledge Management is the place where tools that
allow people to access USGS information are created. This includes the FAQ
web site, which allows people to get more information on the web. The USGS
wants to develop more of these tools, and is just starting on this effort. Information Delivery consists of the work that
USGS has done all along, such as distributing publications and maps. The USGS
is moving towards a print on demand system for maps and publications. This is
a complicated task with which the USGS is struggling, because it is difficult
to convert the contents of a 5-acre warehouse to an on-demand system. The
USGS is still in the process of trying to figure out how to do this. The
change will not happen instantly, instead it will be a gradual transition.
For the near future, the USGS will continue to produce paper maps and make
them available as they make the transition. USGS does intend to deliver as
much information as possible via the web, but will keep a limited amount of
paper stock available for the near future. One of the primary reasons for
this is emergencies. In the event of an emergency, the responders want a
paper map. For example, after Hurricane Rita, there was a lot of GPS work
done to identify flooded areas, but the emergency responders still wanted
printed maps. This has identified another issue: in the event of an
emergency, if everything is digital, how do you go from digital to print?
Plotting is another issue that needs to be addressed. The USGS is working
through all of these issues. Under former USGS Director Chip Groat, the USGS
moved towards a matrix management structure, which means that people report
to two managers. A new USGS director has just been named. Until he is
confirmed, the USGS will continue to operate based on these plans. However,
things could change with the new USGS director. In the case of the USGS,
people report to their regional manager as well as a manager or coordinator
who oversees a particular functional or program area. As Coordinator of the
Natural Science Network, Mike McDermott coordinates the information
activities of the 3 USGS regions, including the Libraries, although his
office has very little staff. All of the work is done in the regions, and
people in those offices, including the libraries, report to their regional
managers. However, the Coordinator’s office controls the money and
allocates funds to various programs. The key coordinator of the libraries,
the National Library Coordinator, will lead the activities of the USGS
Libraries. As coordinator for the Natural Science Network, Mike is working to
fill the position of National Library Coordinator; this person will oversee
the World’s largest Earth Science Library and will develop the vision
to establish a national digital earth science library. While they still want
to retain the analog, they need to balance the book collection and at the
same time develop a digital library. Depository Library activities are in flux. There
is a Congressional mandate and OMB Directive to make information available
over the Web. GPO is also trying to identify the legacy publications, roles
and responsibilities. The USGS is trying to comply with those mandates, but
is also still trying to determine how to go about complying with these
mandates with cartographic materials. Greg
Allord is the National Manager of the USGS Publishing Program, which was a
loose confederation of units within the various disciplines. Instead of doing
a competitive outsourcing process, the USGS has been allowed to create a
high-performing organization. They have mandates and metrics that they have
to meet, but are allowed to do the work in the transition period and retain
the management autonomy. They do not have a contractual obligation to meet
the terms of competitive sourcing. USGS had about 250 publishing
professionals two years ago, including editors, illustrators and
cartographers but that number is now down to approximately 190. They report
to their regional structure, including 3 regional publishing managers. Greg
oversees policy and funding, including allocating money to the various
regions to prepare materials for dissemination. There are certain elements within the National
Publishing program that need to be consistent. In the past the various
disciplines have set their own process. Now there will be national
consistency within all disciplines, and within the 3 regional operations.
They have been working to develop the USGS Publications Warehouse, populate
it with verified citations, and provide digital content. Over half of the
publications in the Publications Warehouse are now available digitally. They
are working to convert the paper to digital at the rate of about 1000 titles
a month. Their goal is to convert all paper publications to digital over the
next few years. They will also be working to create permanent URLs (PURLs)
for the digital items in the Warehouse. A number of cartographic issues were raised last
year at the Map and Geographic Information in Transition conference. The USGS
National Program is working to follow up on these issues. They are starting
to move on these issues, and the USGS recognizes that they do have a
responsibility to continue to provide the traditional products such as the
Professional Papers, Scientific Investigations and topographic maps. However,
they are still trying to develop an answer for some of the issues. Greg went
on to discuss a project that is being done to scan and preserve older
topographic maps. The goal is to convert all of the paper to digital and do
so in a way that the maps are touched only one more time. They want scans of
maps that will be acceptable to the National Archives and Records
Administration to archive, and use to produce derivative products. The final
product will be a publicly accessible Web-based collection of current and
historical USGS quadrangles. The USGS is working on this project through
partners, and providing the framework for the scanned images. They have an
internal, unverified database that was developed to manage the printing and
production of maps. This is the USGS starting point for the project. They
have developed and tested the process, which includes scanning and metadata.
They will be working on geoprocessing the images at a later time. There are
several critical partners in the project, including the USGS Libraries in
Reston and The work is being done at a resolution of 400 dpi
or greater, 24 bit color. They will be doing the 1:24,000 topographic maps
for each state first, then the other scales for that state. The maps are
being scanned and saved as an uncompressed TIFF images; USGS is using that
scanned image as the starting point. They are using an Access database that
gives historical information on publishing history for each quadrangle that
is being used as a reference tool to provide some of the basic metadata
elements. They started with For more information, contact Gregory Allord,
Cartographer, U.S. Geological Survey, Science Information and Education
Office, Publishing Program, More information on the project is at: http://infotrek.er.usgs.gov/pls/htmldb/f?p=182:1:3421198413713854611
Contact for Mike McDermott: Mike McDermott, National
Coordinator of the Natural Science Network, 703-648-5771, mmcdermo@usgs.gov. (Submitted by Linda Zellmer) William R. Effland, Ph.D., Technology for Soil
Survey: Digital Orthophotography and Digital Elevation Models. During the presentation Dr. Effland
covered the National Digital Orthophoto Program (NDOP), Digital Elevation
Model (DEM) data collection, creation, sources and applications. Additionally, he demonstrated the
NRCS’s National Cooperative Soil Survey (NCSS) web site, Web Soil
Survey located at http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/. In
his presentation Dr. Effland discussed the NDOP Interagency Steering
Committee’s purpose to create an orthophoto base that is part of the
NSDI and he explained the Committee’s general operating
principles. He then demonstrated
the NDOP site located at http://www.ndop.gov/. The site has links to imagery sources
and also data http://www.ndop.gov/data.html. There was a discussion about the
difference between the need for NRCS imagery to be leaf-off for soils
information gathering versus other agency needs which require leaf-on for
agricultural and environmental applications. During
the DEM presentation, Dr. Effland discussed the National Digital Elevation
Program (http://www.ndep.gov/) and the
advances in using Light Detecting and Ranging (LiDAR) and Interferometric
Synthetic Aperture Radar (IfSAR) in creating digital surface models (DSM),
Digital Terrain Models (DTM) and Orthorectified Radar Imagery (ORI). He commented that the data is acquired
under a licensing agreement, but derived products will be public domain. Lastly Dr. Effland discussed the
products created from digital elevation models (DEM) and DEM applications
that produce derived data for Topographic Wetness Indices, Stream Power
Indices, Revised USLE
“LS” Factor, Solar Radiation Indices, and Temperature
Indices. He also discussed
drainage basin analysis products derived from DEMs. (submitted by Joe
Aufmuth) Tim Trainor, Assistant Division Chief for
Geographic Areas and Cartographic Data Products, Geography Division, Census Bureau There
are many things going on at the Census Bureau this spring and summer. Moving to a new building in August
2006 involves scanning many items rather than transporting volumes of
paper. The Geography Division
will relocate from its current off-site facilities to the new building in
August 2006. TIGER
files are undergoing a major overhaul using existing GIS files from state and
various other levels of government when available. The remaining geographic area
information will be updated through other acquired sources. When complete in Spring 2008, The
Census Bureau is working in partnership with tribal, state and local
governments and plans to provide them with a software tool to assist in
updating their TIGER data if they do not have their own GIS. The Census Bureau requires constantly
updated street and address information.
In addition, an annual Boundary and Annexation Survey (BAS) is
conducted for most legal entities and will include the full complement of
legal areas beginning with the 2008 BAS. The Bureau will need to continue
this full boundary survey each year to support the annual American Community
Survey (ACS). In
late summer or early fall 2006 there will be a notice in the Federal Register requesting comment on
proposed changes to statistical areas supporting the 2010 Census. The criteria for census tracts are not
expected to change. To
support the ACS in offering detailed data for small area geography, larger
block groups will improve data availability while maintaining the Census
Bureau’s requirement of confidentiality of data. The review will include all
statistical areas for which data is reported from the decennial census. The
2010 Census will be the first to include tabulations by school district.
School district boundaries have been collected and are maintained every two
years in the TIGER database. The
Census Bureau ultimately plans to make a transition from FIPS codes to ANSI
format place designations.
FIPS-55 place and county subdivision codes currently are not being
maintained, but there are some concerns with use of GNIS in their place. The USGS/GNIS view of a
“place” is not necessarily tied to a legal governmental unit in
the same way that the Census Bureau requires (for instance, places at the
boundary of two states sharing the same place name may be treated as a single
place by GNIS). In addition, GNIS
identification numbers are assigned sequentially with no hierarchical
relation to the geography and hence cannot be sorted alphabetically. The
Census Bureau website continues to maintain geographic and cartographic
products in a prominent location on the home page. In response to Hurricane
Katrina the Bureau has created special census tract PDF reference maps for
the The
American Community Survey of a sample of approximately 250,000 households per
month began in 2005. The first
data from the Survey will be released later this summer. It will only be available for areas of
> 65,000 due to confidentiality constraints. Every three years floating averages
will be published for populations between 20,000 and 65,000, and at five year
intervals to smaller areas going down to the block group level. Testing
for the 2010 Census, which will not include a long form (since ACS will
provide this data), is well underway.
Some of the field tests have used hand held devices to collect data. Using GPS they intend to capture the
location of every house (except in The
Census Bureau would like feedback from CUAC and/or its member organizations
as to what formats to provide for geographic information: How
should spatial data traditionally provided via TIGER/Line files be made
available? While
shapefiles meet the needs of many users, they lack topology. Is this a concern? Geographic
mark up language (GML) is rich but complex. The Census Bureau has been developing
capabilities to consider GML as a dissemination format. The Bureau plans to
finalize decisions on use of TIGER/GML by 2008. PDF
format for cartography continues to work well for the Census Bureau, but they
will provide web mapping options as well. Are paper maps still needed? Discussion
after the presentation centered on the county subdivision geographic units,
Minor Civil Divisions and Census County Divisions, and how these units will
be reported in 2010 and the ACS. Participants
were also concerned about availability of historic Census boundaries and
efforts such as the Minnesota Historical Boundary Project to provide this
information. (submitted by
Thelma Thompson) Robin L.
Haun-Mohamed,
Director, Collection Mgmt & Preservation, GPO GPO Reorganization: reorganized into business units
Upcoming Events:
Maps Information: ·
USGS
distribution problems, Interagency agreement between GPO and USGS has come up
for renewal and will be take care of.
GPO also believes there is a problem in the warehouse. GPO has reached
out to their contacts at USGS to find out what is going on. ·
Linda
Zellmer stated that she is not getting USGS shipping lists in a timely
manner; by the time we get the shipping lists on the web site, it is too late
to claim missing maps. Robin will look into that and try to resolve the
problem. ·
Distribution
of Bureau of Land Management maps. Dan Seldin stated that when USGS was printing
for BLM there was an agreement that maps would come flat (not folded) to
depository libraries. Now USGS is not printing the maps and they are coming
folded. Katie is working with the
BLM rep to get flat instead of folded maps distributed to libraries. ·
USGS
report series consolidated into just a few series and may not be making it
into the depository system. USGS
and GPO need to look at this problem. ·
CIA
Maps are in the World Factbook. They are also increasingly available online
and not in paper. ·
NOS
and Aeronautical Maps are being cataloged as serials, when possible. ·
Map
distribution statistics so far for 2006: USGS 189 BLM 135 CIA 20 NOS 188 FAA 25 NGA 0 (pulled together by Betty Jones, now
working in the Archives Unit) ·
No NGA
distribution may be related to international events. There is a need to find
a contact and open discussions with NGA. Robin will see what she can find out
and get back to us, ·
Linda
Zellmer asked about VMAP1 (sale 1:250,000) electronic data recently completed
by NGA. Distribution may be daunting on CD/DVD because of the numbers of
CD/DVDs needed. ·
Bruce
Obenhaus asked about item number surveys. The question came up because in
2003? NIMA stated they had maps
ready for distribution and was waiting for GPO to survey to see what
libraries wanted them. Robin
thinks we missed the window of opportunity on that one. Robin is trying to find a contact in
NGA. When that happens she will
find out if that material is still available. She suspects it is not. Important Projects: ·
Sales
and Distribution RFP has been released with an option for Depository Distribution
included. ·
Beta
mode for the OPAC for the new ILS and the newly redone Catalog of U.S.
Government Publications is almost over.
They are working on restoring title browsing which they had at one
point but it went away. ·
New
askGPO contact center hours, 7am to 8 pm eastern time. ·
Authentication
of Digital Files is waiting for the award of the contract. This is bulk
signing of PDF to ensure authenticity of the document. This is one of the
requirements of the Future Digital System. ·
Biennial
Survey: The 2005 Biennial
Survey of Depository Libraries ran from December 2, 2005 through the end of
December 2005. Since then, GPO has been adding libraries that were late
responders. As of March 13, 2006, 1,214 libraries have responded. GPO is working to get the data
compiled and available. Questions 65 and
66, dealing with digital publications files, generated a healthy exchange of
ideas for the discussion lists. Q. 65: My library systematically downloads, stores
online publications identified from GPO Access or through GPO-created PURLS,
and makes them accessible to the general public from local servers. This past
year my library downloaded the following number of digital publication files
(this does not include shipping lists, Web pages, or datasets): Percentage of
tabulated responses: 0---81.06% 1-25---10.91% 26-100---3.05% 101-500---3.53% 501-1000---0.64% 1001-5000---0.80% More than
5000---0.00% Q. 66. My library is willing to receive Federal digital
publication files on deposit from GPO, store them, and make the accessible to
the general public from local servers. My library is willing to receive the
following number of digital publication files per year (this does not include
shipping lists, Web pages, or databases): Depository Library
Council Update April 2006 Percentage of
tabulated responses: 0 72.52% 1-25 15.31% 26-100 4.77% 101-500 3.25% 501-1000 1.93% 1001-5000 1.12% More than 5000
1.12% ·
Web
Harvesting Project two vendors going through EPA web sites identifying any
in-scope federal publication.
These harvesting efforts will be compared to what GPO has found
manually to see if this is a good method of capturing fugitive documents. The
first scan has recently been completed but the data is not in yet. ·
GPO\FedEx
Kinkos Express Program, a service for printing for agencies at discount
prices, has identified 11 documents in-scope for the depository system. This
may prove a good way to capture what would become fugitive documents. More information can be found at http://www.gpo.gov/gpoexpress/index.html ·
Digitization
of the Historical Collection project was approved by the Joint Committee on
Printing at the end of March. A pilot project will run for 6 months,
beginning June 1. Material to be digitized is part of the first tier in
GPO’s Priorities for Digitization of Legacy Collection, located at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/legacy/index.html.
Requests for donations of specific publications will be sent very soon to the
documents community, including Federal Register, Congressional Record, Code
of Federal Regulations, U.S. Code, Congressional Record Indexes, possibly
Bills (possibly because they don't want to do it from microfiche and they
have to find paper copies), and Public and Private Laws. Digitization Specs
will be covered by Ted Priebe. Ted Preibe,
Director,
Library Planning & Development, GPO
(Submitted
by Bruce Obenhaus) Dr. John R. Hébert, Chief, Geography and Map
Division, Library of Congress The L.C. Geography and Map Division
is working with Readex to scan the colored maps from the Serial Set. The project has reached Serial Set
maps produced by 1900. Last year's conference on the Future
of Map Libraries, sponsored by CUAC and the Geography and Map Division, has
brought about a number of cooperative ventures. The Another cooperative program is the
National Digital Infrastructure Preservation Project which will create
archival digital collections.
There are 2 geospatial projects in the NDIIPP. The Geography and Map Division is
working with the LC Office of Strategic Initiatives to look into LC archiving
the National Map and National Atlas as a backup to USGS. The G & M Division is also looking
into working with USGS and the National Archives to archive and possibly scan
the "legacy" collection of USGS quadrangle maps. There has to be an agreement on
scanning standards. There have been some international
programs. Academia Sinica from While hiring remains tight at LC,
the G & M Division will be permitted to fill 2 cataloging positions from
within Library Services. Also the
Division will be able to fill the positions of Cataloging Team Leader from
within the Library and the Head of the Reading Room from within Library
Services (the former Head retired at Christmas 2005). The Division can hire a GS-14 Digital
Specialist from outside LC. A GS
9-12 Cartographer for the Congressional Cartography Program can also be
hired. LC is planning to put the 1507
Waldseemuller map on permanent display in late summer 2007 in a special
encasement with inert gases and constant monitoring that will last 20-25 years
without degradation. They are
planning a 2 day conference in September 2007 to discuss all aspects of the
map and its time period. The digital team has scanned over
9000 maps that have been put on LC's web site. The most impressive additions
during the past year are the Jedediah Hotchkiss Civil War maps and a
collection of situation maps from World War Two showing the daily progress of
allied forces through The Congressional Cartography
Program has one GIS specialist who is producing maps for Congressmen and
Senators. The maps produced are
not available unless the Congressman or Senator makes them available. The Program is producing congressional
district maps and state maps with congressional boundaries. The current acting team leader for
the Cataloging Team in G&M is Rodney Pollock. Two years ago, the G & M Division
began a pilot project to allow online access to set map holdings. Then the funding for the project
ended. During the past four
months, this project has been resurrected with the development of a plan to
capture holdings data on LC's With regards to digital data, the G
& M Division is cataloging only CD-ROMs and not online data. They are attempting to list all the
data sets in the record. (Submitted
by Dan Seldin) Submitted
Written Agency Reports: NREL's Currently our FTP
site (http://www.nrel.gov/gis) has geographic
shapefiles of annual wind power class (for 33 states and an older national
assessment), annual and monthly solar resource (direct normal and
tilt=latitude collector), and biomass resource. In the near future, we will also be
adding a higher resolution solar resource data (10 km ground resolution) for
the southwestern There are many
additional datasets that can be provided upon request, but aren't distributed
on the FTP site. Some of these
datasets require review of need and management approval before they can be sent. These include the original raster
power density datasets that the wind power class shapefiles are created from;
supplemental/unvalidated wind speed and power information for different
heights above ground and time scales; wind measurement data; and solar
modeled hourly values. Contact persons: Donna Heimiller Pamela
Gray-Hann Research Scientist
( National Renewable
Energy Laboratory Phone:303-275-4626 (submitted by Anita Oser)
|
