AZSITE Consortium
Quarterly Meeting
State Historic Preservation Office
i. Grindell reported that the AZSITE grant submitted to ADOT for Transportation Enhancement funding was once again turned down. AZSITE will apply again in 2006.
ii. Grindell provided the following financial report on AZSITE funds. The income for FY 04-05 was $51,674. Fifteen percent in administrative fees was deducted and $17,593 was rolled over from the prior fiscal year, leaving $61,516 in total to cover AZSITE expenses, which included $24,500 in wages, $1,389 in travel, $18,046 in operations (including new servers, software, and licenses), $1,342 for programming, and $1,000 to ASU for data entry. Therefore, $15,239 will be rolled over to FY 05-06. In the first quarter of the current fiscal year, $4,37 had been committed or spent on operations, $2,428 had been committed or spent on travel, and $2,956 was spent on programming, leaving a balance of $6,741.
i. Data entry status:
1. Karl reported the following for ASM – There are 1300 electronic data submissions to review before upload. He will be digitizing 109 BLM Yuma maps (AZ X, R, etc). BLM Sierra Vista is updating the San Pedro area maps. On-line version of data in system is ready to be uploaded. He projects that ASM Legacy data will take another 3 years.
2.
3. Barton reported that ASU had all data in but needs to do corrections on data, once a new computer is set up and configured, and expects to be helping SHPO with some of its data.
4. Wilcox reported that at MNA Lindsay Hunt is working on legacy data and expects it will be one by end of year. Wilcox is adding hilltop sites to enter and there are some “loose ends” of legacy data.
5. All agencies plan to scan old sketch maps and put on line. ASM has old site cards and they will be attached to records as soon as security functions can be established.
ii.
Server status:
Karl reports that ASU’s
1. When the new server went into operation, the 7-˝ minute maps went on line, too, and are working.
iii. Applications Updates
1. Status of new data entry module: Changes were made per earlier discussions and the module is ready to go, pending completion of a data entry manual. It is very necessary that all projects started in the old module be created in the old module as it and the new module are not compatible. Redundant data entry has been eliminated, arithmetic calculations are automated. There are still a couple of users using the 1997 data entry module and we will probably stop accepting data in that version by the end of the year, but the current module will be useable for at least the next year. However, the new module has such increased functionality that it will be worthwhile to switch as soon as possible.
2.
3. Handheld data entry modules: By mid-2007 AZSITE plans to have the AZSITE entry module converted to work on handheld computers. Karl said he is still investigating hand-held applications and will take that into account.
i. A couple of users have reported that the “log in” button is not visible on the spatial search home page. However, if they hold the mouse over the area and click, they can log in. Karl is investigating browser issues.
ii. Karl is considering adding “quick search” commands for common requests like site number and survey number. He will add 2 reference layers. One is canals, which will have a disclaimer that the canals are estimates and for reference only. The second is an “ancestral claims boundary” layer that can offer some assistance on which tribes claim affinity to which areas. There was a request for a “quick search” on Township, Range, and Section, Karl said that it can be done if there is enough desire.
iii. Karl demonstrated doing a query by map quad under the current system. Notes of interest: users must have pop-ups enabled in order to make the live link from the GIS map to the attributes web page. Users must have “passive firewall” unchecked or they cannot submit data to AZSITE. There were several questions and suggestions from the audience:
1. A query came for expanded fields in the National Register eligibility fields, as “DETERM” could be interpreted either as determined eligible or determined not eligible. It should also have project number added to the eligibility recommendation.
2. Township and range should be listed in east and north order, rather than north and east (although when people speak they say, north first).
3. There
was a question about which projection is being used. Currently it is NAD 27 and AZSITE hasn’t
converted to NAD 83 yet because there are some uncorrected errors in NAD 83
maps for
4. There were question about references and hot-linking without have to do two searches.
5. AZSITE’s reference database will be removed once LARC is completely hot-linked.
6. In response to a question about NR recommendations, Carol Griffith replied that she prefers that field recorders make the initial recommendation.
7. Can 1:250,000 maps be restored for large scale projects? Karl responded yes, as they are still on the system but were turned off.
8. Can sites be hatched in red, as are surveys in blue? Yes.
9.
Will all state and
national register properties be included?
10. The request for “floating” UTMs
on maps is a complicated technical issue, but Karl reported that the GIS staff
at ASU is considering the options.
iv. In discussion of historic data, Karl reported that an “historic properties” layer will be created to contain only standing architecture and structures. All other historic sites will be in a separate layer. Ultimately linear sites including railroads and highways will be separated into a separate layer, too. There will be an error reporting mechanism, called “Feedback” that users can use to send a query directly to Karl or to Shea Lamar at ASU to report malfunction or incorrect data.