[MassHistPres] Database Systems for Historic Resource Information

[Anne Forbes]

I would strongly recommend the Amherst model for linking a community's historic properties inventory to the MACRIS database.  

Using any town funds to set up a system that is largely redundant seems both wasteful and confusing to the public.  MACRIS is already set up, and is searchable state-wide and by category.  In addition, getting the public used to working with MACRIS , and now the MACRIS maps, can pay off in expanding local thinking to at least a regional perspective.  Even if a searcher is interested only in one local property, discovering that the context for the associated families, builders, styles, etc. may be broader than the community's borders is valuable in itself.  I've never seen a local survey database that can do that.

Anne Forbes,
Acton

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: gismgr 
  To: 'masshistpres at cs.umb.edu' 
  Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2014 9:03 AM
  Subject: Re: [MassHistPres] Database Systems for Historic Resource Information


  Ms. Kritzer,

   

  One example of something similar to what you're looking to do has been implemented in Amherst.  The Town of Amherst has linked their municipal GIS to the MHC's own MACRIS database, which contains scanned historic inventory forms for historic resources in almost every town in the Commonwealth.  It might be worth contacting Amherst to find out more about how well it works for the public through their GIS, but if you search for a property or parcel at their property search and then map it in their online viewer, a link to the appropriate MACRIS entry for any structures, objects, or landscapes on the MHC's inventory associated with that parcel is given (only if there is an inventoried item on the property in the first place).  The gateway to the Amherst GIS can be found here: http://amherstma.gov/PropertySearch. The GIS contact there is Michael Olkin, olkinm at amherstma.gov.  

   

  Alternatively, the MHC's online historic mapping tool, MACRIS Maps (http://maps.mhc-macris.net/), supplies links directly to our MACRIS database where scanned historic inventory forms are downloadable by anyone.  Any point or district on the map can be selected using the various tools we have available underneath the site's search bar, and once a selected point is highlighted in the informational panel at the bottom of the screen, a link to the pertinent MACRIS entry for that item appears.  Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about how to use this resource and/or its connection to the scanned inventory forms.   Thank you,

   

   

  Miles Shugar

  GIS Data Entry Supervisor

  Massachusetts Historical Commission

  Preservation Planning Division

  220 Morrissey Blvd

  Boston, MA 02125

  (617) 727-8470

   



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