Thinking About A Solution for Unrecorded/Unfiled Maps

[Sunburned_Surveyor]

I know there has been some intense discussion about unrecorded/unfiled maps recently. There has even been some discussion of legislation to allow for the filing of these maps at the County Surveyor Office or County Clerk and Recorder.

I was thinking it would be failry easy for California Land Surveyors to come up with their own system for identifying and preserving access to this type of documents with the need to depend on government or legislation. I wanted to bounce this idea of my peers and mentors here.

It wouldn't be difficult at all to set-up an online repository for unrecorded maps and other documents related to real property. The space on a web server can be purchased for a small sum of money (we are talking about pizza money) in about 10 minutes.

The following process could then be set up:

1) A surveyor would submit a digital copy of the document for identification and storage.

2) A unique numeric identifier and a user friendly name would be assigned to the document.

3) The document would be stored in the online repository.

4) The location of the document would be added to a geographic index. The index could be published to the larger surveying community as a KML file for Google Earth or as a ESRI Shapefile.

5) Surveyors could then refer to the unrecorded documents on Record of Surveys and other documents using the unique identifier that was assigned.

This process would be entirely voluntary. Surveyors would only have to submit documents if they want to. (This might prompt some surveyors to clean out some of their own dusty files, and might keep precious records from being destroyed by ignorant heirs or widdows.)

The CLSA Central Valley Chapter has already implemented a system that is somewhat similar to this, although we aren't assigning unique identifiers to documents or maintaining a geographic index.

If there was interest in doing this on a statewide basis, I could talk to my employer about the dedication of some resources to make it happen. We might even be able to pull it under the CLSA umbrella as a service we offer to our members and the larger surveying community. (I'm willing to take the lead on this effort.)

I don't think this effort needs to impact what others might be pushing for on legislation related to unrecorded maps and documents. This would be a separate volunteer effort to help preserve and provide access to records by surveyors who see a value in this process.

It might even be possible at a future time to raise some modest funds to purchase privately held record collections to make them available for everyone.

Let me know what you think. I think we should do it tomorrow. :]

Landon

[Lee Hixson]

Sounds like a great, workable, and useful system. Besides being able to locate maps geographically, would there be a way to search using someone's LS number, or street name, city, county, agency name, etc.?

[Warren Smith]

Landon,

That is an excellent concept. I would hope that references on filed maps to this depository would, over time, become the norm by convention.

I don't believe there is a stricture in the statutes against this process - it's going to be a step toward weaving these maps into the fabric of "following in the footsteps".

There are some Counties which house unfiled maps and are referenced as being in the County Surveyor's Records. It does work.

[dmi]

I am on board ,but the record holders need to be willing to sell their records or donate them. What about field notes and bound fieldbooks? Your suggestion is something I have imagined for years, a California Land Surveyor's Library....

[cals6406]

As the "librarian" for the Central Valley Chapter Library:
http://www.californiacentralvalleysurve ... rary.shtml

I will accept and post un-filed maps, field books or other survey or surveyor records in our three counties or any of the adjacent counties to the Chapter Library.

If I don't have a link there now, I will create one.

I can also add a reference folder to any of the 253,000+ maps that we have on-line to include reference materials if you have information you would like linked to one of these maps.

Also - not as Central Valley Chapter Librarian or on behalf of the Chapter in any way-
If you have Survey/Surveyor materials outside the Central Valley Area and want it posted online, contact me and we can set something up to get it online as long as there are no copyright issues.

[Matt Cunningham]

Great idea Landon. We have volumes of field books and plats here in the office dating back to the mid-1950's. They are a great resource for us, but should be made readily accessible to the surveying community. I'm not sure the most efficient method to converting everything to electronic files, though...

[Sunburned_Surveyor]

It sounds like there is good support for this concept. I'll come up with an indexing and document ID system and will get a repository online next week.

I'll also work with Keith Spencer to make sure there is good coordination with this effort and the CLSA Central Valley Chapter library. (I can index and assign an ID to all records that go into the Central Valley Library, and I'll make sure any Central Valley records submitted to the statewide index go to the Central Valley Chapter library.)

Lee: I'll make sure the index for records includes the information you mentioned in your post, which will allow us to search for information using those document "attributes".

DMI: I think it would be great to include historical field books in the repository if we can get scans in digital format. I'm also open to exploring the idea of some find raising to purchase private records from willing surveyors. I'll think about teaching a couple of workshops where the profits could go towards these types of record purchases.

Matt: Give me a call if you need suggestions on how to convert records to digital format. I have some ideas.

I'll post again once I have the repository online.

Perhaps the Central Valley Chapter would be willing to take on stewardship of this statewide repository since they already have an extensive holding? I'll talk to the chapter about this at our next meeting.

Landon

[Sunburned_Surveyor]

I purchased 200GB of space for the California Land Surveyor Real Property Document Library today. I also wrote a preliminary guide to the library that explains the document identifiers and submittal requirements.

The guide is posted in the root of the repository and can be accessed here:
http://www.mediafire.com/view/2kamlejzcqfdudk/Guide.pdf

I'll try to add the following documents from my collection to the repository next week:
1) Maps and field notes for monuments set by DWR on the Yolo Bypass.
2) Maps of the CM Weber Grant in Stockton.
3) ROW Maps for the Stockton Diverting Canal.
4) Historic San Joaquin County Property Index Book

If you would like to submit some documents for indexing, please read the guide and e-mail your document or a link to your document to sunburned.surveyor@gmail.com. Please put "CLSRPDL Submittal" in your subject line.

Let me know if you would like to help maintain and administer the library and its index. I'll get you the log-in information for the MediaFire repository.

I'll post again when the first documents are added to the index.

Thanks.

Landon

[Sunburned_Surveyor]

Michael Ford contributed the first document to the library. It is an unrecorded map from Richard Hogan in 1964. You can view the document folder here:
http://www.mediafire.com/folder/51xoykg ... 0130812-01

I've added this document to the library index, which is no located here:
http://www.mediafire.com/folder/s0n5btf ... ment_Index

I'll create and add a KML file to this same library index folder this week. I'll also create a mailing list for surveyors that want to track contributions to the library.

I'm happy to see this get off the ground!

Thanks.

Landon

[Sunburned_Surveyor]

A Google Group mailing list is now available for the library:
https://groups.google.com/d/forum/clsrpdl

Thanks.

Landon

[Lee Hixson]

This deserves to be a sticky. Can the administrator possibly arrange that?

[Proud7191]

Great grassroots effort! Thanks for the effort Landon! Jp

[E_Page]

That's a great idea Landon. IMO, the most workable solution at this time is if the CLSA chapters take it upon themselves to create and maintain repositories as you've suggested.

[Sunburned_Surveyor]

I've been contacted privately with some concerns about the new library I've set up violating copyright on some of the submitted maps.

I think most surveyors would be surprised at how little protection would be offered to any of their maps, private or public, under any legal principle under US law, like copyright. It is also important to note that the US doesn’t offer protections under database concepts like the EU. This is an area of great misunderstanding among surveyors. There are only a handful of cases that deal with copyright as it relates to maps and other geospatial data, but if you are interested in this subject you should read them. (I need to see if I can find them and post the references.) This is a really fascinating topic that could merits its own thread or BBQ and beer discussion.

However: The concerns expressed to me in private have persuaded me to make some adjustments to my submission policy. As a professional courtesy I will attempt to contact any living surveyor BEFORE his unfiled map is posted to the library. I will also attempt to contact any surveyor currently managing a collection of unfiled maps if a submitted map is known to be a part of that collection. If the surveyor doesn't grant me permission to post the map, it won't be included in the library.

I don’t want this map library to be a huge source of controversy. I also don’t want it to undermine the value of any privately held map collections. That isn’t the purpose. This library is intended for surveyors who would like to voluntarily submit their unfiled/unrecorded documents because they believe this will improve the practice of boundary surveying in our state and that it will benefit the greater public good.

I hope these changes to the submission policy for the library will alleviate some of the concerns.

Landon

[Sunburned_Surveyor]

I would love to see more of our CLSA chapters follow the lead of Keith Spencer and the CLSA Central Valley Chapter, but it is a lot of work. I think we will realize some economies of scale by having a statewide library.

One concern I have is about getting a little volunteer support with library admin from a couple other surveyors. I don't want this thing to go down suddenly if I get hit buy a bus. We need to have this be just a bit bigger than one surveyor if it is going to be a long-term solution.

I'll have to think about putting together a call for volunteers.

Landon

[land butcher]

Any map/document used to support a recorded survey should become public record filed and numbered by the county recorder.

[Sunburned_Surveyor]

I wanted to provide a quick update on the library for unfiled survey documents:

- I've added 4 new documents to the library. These include unfiled maps and field notes from DWR on the Yolo Bypass, an unfiled survey of a City of Salinas Parcel, unfiled right-of-way maps for the Stockton Diverting Canal, and an unfiled survey of a parcel line at the University of Pacific in Stockton.

- I've revised the guide to use a shorter form of document identifiers for the library.

- I've uploaded a Google Earth KML file that shows the approximate location of documents in the library.

Thanks.

Landon

[Jim Frame]

I only see 1 document in the library (20130812-01.pdf). What's the trick to accessing the others?

Thanks!

P.S. A section in the Guide on accessing the library site would be helpful.

[Sunburned_Surveyor]

Jim:

There is a new web page for the library here:
http://www.redefinedhorizons.com/printi ... t-library/

There is a list of the document links at the bottom of the page.

Thanks.

Landon

[Sunburned_Surveyor]

Jim Frame has been added as a second administrator for the California Land Surveyor Real Property Documents Map Library. He can now upload maps and other documents to the library, as well as make other changes to it.

So...if I get hit by a buss, we have a back-up. :]

Let me know if you are also interested in serving as an admin. Hopefully I can get some more maps uploaded this week.

Landon