Government Mapping and Information Update

By Valerie Allen, Office of Scientific and Technical Information,
U.S. Department of Energy

The Government Mapping and Information Update session featured presentations by Ted Priebe, Government Printing Office (GPO); John Carpenter, ExCensus LLC; and Susan Maroney, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Veterinary Services.  The program was sponsored by Springer.

The session focused on digital systems and programs, current and planned, within GPO, Census, and Agriculture.  GPO is moving to an automated system, FDsys, to collect and disseminate all documents within the scope of GPO's Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP).  Information will be permanently available in e-format and accessible via the Web.  Conventional and on-demand printing will be available and the information will be authenticated and version controlled.  FDsys is currently under development and the public launch release is planned for later in 2007.

Census, with its Local Employment Dynamics (LED) partner states, has developed an interactive mapping application, On the Map (OTM) which shows in high definition where people live and work.  Entry points include clicking on a U.S. map or entering a city name or zip code.  A subset of states is currently available with many more available soon.  Area profile reports are capable of being generated in multiple breakouts such as a workforce profile composed of aggregated ages, wages, and industries.  Commute and labor sheds are available with map overlays to expand analysis.

Tracking animal health with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) was discussed as a means to track surveillance for animal disease.  Surprisingly, farms supplying food to the food chain do not need to register with the federal government in the U.S. as they do in many other countries such as Canada.  Consequently, much agricultural data is held at the state level as opposed to the federal level.  Emergency management uses mapping to get ahead of animal disease; various publicly available sources include the National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS), the U.S. Animal Health Report, Emerging Animal Health Issues, worldwide Emergency Preparedness and Response systems such as those under WHO, Geospatial OneStop, Geodata.gov.