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| Home > 125th > Articles > History | September 22, 2008 | |
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125 Years of Science Available Online One hundred and twenty five years' worth of published USGS earth science information will soon be available online at the new USGS Store (http://store.usgs.gov), the web site for ordering USGS products. Currently, approximately 130,000 different products are available, including all 7.5-minute topographic maps and many special maps. The new online store includes a link to a reports and thematic maps database from the Product Warehouse, which currently contains more than 60,000 bibliographic citations, including numbered series begun as early as 1882. When fully operational, the USGS Store will provide online access and ordering capability for all published products (maps, books, general interest publications, etc.) available from the USGS distribution center in Denver, Colorado. Ordering options enable users to charge to an account, a project number, or a credit card. The site also enables customers to check their order status and receive email confirmations. Developed at the Branch of Information Services (BIS) in the Central Region Rocky Mountain Mapping Center, the USGS store provides an improved user-friendly method of communicating recent news and announcing new or featured products. Products distributed through BIS include items that are a result of partnerships with a multitude of other agencies and private companies. Expertise in distribution, a large customer base, a network of more than 1200 Business Partner retailers, and a state-of-the-art inventory system makes partnering with USGS very appealing for other agencies. Current partners include USDA Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and Library of Congress. As these partnerships have developed, so too has the number and variation of products produced. A featured product on the USGS Store website is the Lewis and Clark commemorative poster portraying a copy of the Clark map from 1810 (which was acquired from the Library of Congress) in a parallel view with a current map of the same area using National Elevation Data from The National Map. This poster celebrates the 200th anniversary of the expedition and explains the USGS connection to the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery. History of product distribution in the USGS When Clarence King became the first Director of USGS, he realized that the legislation establishing the Geological Survey did not define in detail the duties of the new organization. After discussing these functions with members of Congress, King concluded that the intention of Congress was to begin a rigid scientific classification of the lands of the national domain for the general information of the people of the country. The USGS was to produce a series of land maps to show all those features upon which the intelligent agriculturists, mining engineers, and timbermen might hereafter base their operations; these maps obviously would also be of the highest value to all students of the political economy and resources of the United States. Accordingly, topographic mapping was included in the work of the Geological Survey. From 1879 to 1888, Survey funds were allotted for mapping surveys. Since 1889, Congress has made annual appropriations to the Survey specifically for topographic surveys. In the late 1940s, a distribution center was established to allow for the dissemination of the accumulated earth science information. Silver Spring, Maryland, was the initial site for the center and a short time later, the facility was moved to Arlington, Virginia. In the 1950s, a second distribution center was set up at the federal center in Denver, Colorado. In 1986, these two facilities were merged into the current location in Building 810 at the Denver Federal Center. The Branch of Information Services (BIS) was established in August 1994. BIS integrated information and product delivery functions of the former Branch of Distribution and the Regional Earth Science Information Center (ESIC). BIS is still in operations at the Denver Federal Center. |
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