Monthly Automated Generation of State wide Shapefile and Datasheet Archive products
The state wide ESRI formatted shapefiles and Datasheet Archive text files will now be generated on a monthly basis. This is an automated process and negates the need for NGS staff to manually generate the shapefiles from Datasheet text files. Please contact the NGS Webmaster if you encounter any problems with the shapefiles or having any comments to improve the process. Your assistance is greatly appreciated.
Background:
NGS has been providing various datasheet products for a number of years on its public FTP site. Historically, before the web and ftp, NGS created CDROMs that were mailed to interested parties 4 times a year. This same process was migrated to the Internet when NGS first established its presence on the Net.
Due to computer backups and other limitations on computing resources, each state will be generated on different day of the month (for example, FL will generate on the 19th, while LA generates on the 13th). The location of current shapefile products has not changed. It remains:
ftp://ftp.ngs.noaa.gov/pub/DS_ARCHIVE/ShapeFiles/
The previous month's generated shapefile will be available in:
ftp://ftp.ngs.noaa.gov/pub/DS_ARCHIVE/ShapeFiles/ARCHIVE/LAST_MONTH/
Please notify the NGS webmaster (ngs.webmaster@noaa.gov) if you encounter any issues with these NGS products. Also, if you hear of any feedback (good or bad) please pass it on as well so we may improve the process. Thank you for your assistance. Please let me know if you have any questions.
