Anita: The USDA Forest Service Heritage data for sites and surveys is
being put into a web-based system called INFRA.  Lots of security
levels and we can only see the stuff from our own Forest and can not
even see the stuff from another Forest in the same state. As far as I
can tell so far, its only real use is that it was developed for number
crunching for upward reporting.  Has not helped us on-the-ground
worker-ants even a little bit.

:-(

Smoke


On 3/26/07, Anita Cohen-Williams <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I have often batted the idea around about doing an archaeological
> clearinghouse for gray literature, based on the model of ERIC
> (Educational Resources Information Clearinghouse).
>
> Unfortunately, ERIC (which stored information at specific
> institutions), collapsed as soon as government funding ran out.
>
> However, with the advent of CD-ROMs, and new ways of storing data, it
> may be possible to revisit the idea.
>
> What if every CRM agency sent a copy of their reports to one central
> location, with the purpose of that information being scanned and
> placed on CDs (or DVDs) for further storage? The data could be kept in
> categories for easy retrieval.
>
> At least we could keep up with the current information, and try to go
> back and retrieve older information.
>
> Unfortunately, I have found that older reports often disappear from
> state repositories and archaeological facilities.
>
> --
> Anita Cohen-Williams
> ArchaeoSeek
> http://archaeoseek.ning.com
>


-- 
Smoke Pfeiffer

Absence of Evidence is NOT Evidence of Absence