Digital Underground: Seeking Electronic Versions of Archaeological Reports

As many of you will have noticed in your recent correspondence with our office, the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), we have made a change in number and media requested for archaeological report copies. We are now requesting just one hard copy for the permanent archive file here at the SHPO office in Harrisburg, as well as three electronic copies on disks. This recent change is an attempt to plan for a future time when archaeological reports will be available on the Cultural Resources Geographic Information System (CRGIS) to qualified users, in their entirety.

In an attempt to provide as many reports electronically as possible once the updates to the CRGIS are complete in the future, our office and the Pennsylvania Archaeological Council (PAC) would like to jointly request your assistance in this endeavor. The SHPO would like to collect electronic versions of older compliance reports to stockpile for their eventual inclusion on the CRGIS. It is our hope that you will aid us in this effort by sending in CDs containing electronic versions of your previously submitted reports to the SHPO office at the address above. To properly organize, store, and eventually upload this electronic information, we need to receive the electronic versions in the following format:

• One project per CD, please identify the Environmental Review (ER) number.

• Each report (i.e. Phase I, Phase II, Phase III) should be one separate .PDF file, containing all volumes and appendices.

• We are also happy to receive any additional project information (i.e. full artifact inventory tables, extra photographs, scanned field notes, etc.) on the same CD as the .PDF report files. If you choose to provide shape files for project boundaries please include those files on a separate CD labeled with the ER number.

If you have electronic copies of Historic Structures Reports or Historic Structures Surveys, and would like to provide those documents to our office for their eventual inclusion on the CRGIS, we would be happy to receive those documents as well. If you choose to send Historic Structures Reports or Historic Structures Surveys please provide those reports as single .PDF files, on a separate CD labeled with the ER number.

If you have any questions regarding this request please contact Kira Heinrich at (717) 705-0700.

Please mail all materials to:

PHMC-BHP
ATTN: Electronic Survey Reports
Commonwealth Keystone Building, 2nd Floor
400 North St.
Harrisburg, PA 17120

Thank you in advance for your efforts to help us plan for the day when we can all more conveniently access the full depth of the SHPO report archive through the CRGIS.

Serena G. Bellew
Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer