The National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) contracted with URS Group, Inc. (URS), to conduct a two-phased study on improving current approaches to evaluating cultural resource significance (i.e., National Register eligibility) in the context of both transportation projects and compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. The first phase examined current methods used nationwide to manage and organize cultural resource inventory data and historic contexts. The study also determined if information technology (IT) applications have been useful in developing inventories and contexts. Finally, the study provided recommendations regarding IT applications to improve the development and use of resource inventories and historic contexts as tools for determining National Register eligibility. The second phase focused on the development and testing of two prototype IT applications that would streamline and improve how resources are evaluated for National Register eligibility. The two prototypes that were fully developed are the Historic Property Screening Tool (HPST) and the Electronic Cultural Resource Evaluation Library (ECREL). The HPST is a tool that guides a user through the National Register eligibility evaluation steps, using the evaluation components of a historic context, as defined in National Register Bulletin 15 and the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Historic Preservation Planning. The HPST database allows users to select a historic context and the property type most appropriate to the resource being evaluated. The “registration” criteria for the property type (based in part on aspects of integrity) are then used to determine National Register eligibility. ECREL is a web-based tool that includes searchable historic contexts and other documents used in making decisions on National Register eligibility. Development of this tool involved (1) designing a document profile (i.e., index values [metadata] collected for each document), (2) defining acceptable index values and a keyword baseline, and (3) collecting and scanning paper documents and loading the documents into the database. Electronic documents were also placed within the database. State departments of transportation (DOTs), state historic preservation offices (SHPOs), and cultural resource management (CRM) consultants assisted URS in the testing and validation of these two tools by using the tools and completing an evaluation form on each tool. (Author/publisher) This report may be accessed by Internet users at http://gulliver.trb.org/publications/nchrp/nchrp_rpt_542.pdf
Samenvatting