Cultural Resources Subcommittee Update to Coordination Group

1. 19 November 2013 Coordination Group Meeting Cultural Resources Subcommittee Update to Coordination Group John Knoerl, Chair Program Manager, Cultural Resource GIS Facility, National Park Service 202-354-2140 John_knoerl@nps.gov Date v1

2. Introduction The Mission/Purpose of the Cultural Resource Subcommittee is: identify, prioritize, implement, coordinate and oversee the strategies and tasks required to support the national cultural resource data theme and to coordinate Federal, Tribal, state and local geospatial programs to that end. Members include: • John Knoerl, National Park Service, Chair • Deidre McCarthy, National Park Service, theme lead • 20 Federal land holding agencies • 10 State Historic Preservation Offices • 10 Tribal governments, Tribal Historic Preservation Offices

3. NGDA Data Themes and Data Sets • The following data themes and data sets fall under the purview of the Cultural Resource Subcommittee: • Cultural resource data theme, National Park Service, theme lead: Deidre McCarthy • National Register of Historic Places data set, National Park Service, Matthew Stutts • Currently exploring other data sets for inclusion

4. Recent Meetings • The Cultural Resource Subcommittee met on 29 October 2013. • The topics discussed at this meeting include: • Progress of the individual task groups within the Subcommittee • Review of the Subcommittee 2014 work plan • Some of the outcomes arising from this meeting include: • Task groups reported on progress of development toward a draft cultural resource spatial data transfer standard. • Task groups will continue to meet independently from the Subcommittee over the next two months • The Subcommittee Chair will begin to draft the proposed cultural resource spatial data transfer standard based on task group input in preparation for the 28 January 2014 meeting

5. Recent Developments/Projects • The Subcommittee has committed to constructing a cultural resource spatial data transfer standard to facilitate sharing data between Federal agencies. Federal, State and Tribal agencies all maintain inventories of cultural resources and are heavily involved in the standard creation process in anticipation of using the FGDC standard created. Task groups to examine feature level metadata requirements, linking spatial data to descriptive data, geographic delineation of features, safeguarding sensitive information and exploring existing standards continue to work on their portions, reporting back to the larger Subcommittee. The Subcommittee will be working toward creating a draft standard in 2014. • The existing standards task group has completed their research and is contributing to the Unified Federal Environmental/Historic Preservation Review for Disaster Recovery Projects on-going DHS/FEMA effort

6. Recent Developments/Projects, Cont’d. • The Subcommittee is working toward the approval of an FGDC Subcommittee charter. • The Subcommittee is working toward identifying additional data sets that will fall within the cultural resource theme and identifying data set stewards for them.

7. Coordination Group Vote • Deidre McCarthy submitted the draft Cultural Resource Subcommittee charter to the Coordination Group for approval in September 2013. This draft charter has been approved by the Subcommittee members and reviewed by FGDC Coordination Group members prior to submission for a vote. The charter identifies the membership, goals, priorities and mission of the Subcommittee. • The draft charter was distributed to the Coordination Group via email on 16 September 2013

8. Next Meeting • The next meeting of the Cultural Resource Subcommittee will be held on 28 January 2014. It will take place via teleconference. • Some of the topics to be discussed at the next meeting include: • The status of the Subcommittee charter. • Progress of the independent task groups. • Progress toward a draft cultural resource spatial data transfer standard draft.

9. Next Steps • In the coming months, the Cultural Resource Subcommittee hopes to accomplish/discuss: • Independent meetings of the geographic delineation, feature level metadata, linking to attributes and sensitive information task groups. • Coordination of the sensitive information and feature level metadata task groups to develop a draft set of feature level metadata and means for identifying restricted cultural resource information. • Preliminary development of a draft cultural resource spatial data transfer standard.

10. Questions? Deidre McCarthy, National Park Service 202-354-2141 Deidre_mccarthy@nps.gov