Avencia Receives ESRI's Foundation Partner of the Year Award
Abby Fretz

We are proud to announce that we have received the 2007 Environmental Systems Research Institute’s (ESRI) Foundation Partner of the Year Award for the Philadelphia region. ESRI gives the award to the partner who, through hard work and dedication, has consistently built a strong, dependable relationship with ESRI and has made a contribution to the community through its work with GIS technology.

We're honored and proud to receive this prestigious award from ESRI. We strive to leverage ESRI's leading edge server products such as ArcGIS Server and ArcWeb Services, and this award is a tribute to both Avencia's staff and the clients with whom we collaborate. ESRI's products have enabled us to implement innovative approaches to geographic analysis, geocoding and web-based applications. Avencia's solutions for digital asset management, geocoding, political advocacy and decision support all benefit from our strategic partnership with ESRI.

Avencia Releases a New Version of Phillyhistory.org, Powered by Sajara
Abby Fretz

We are happy to announce the release of Sajara, a web-based, geographic digital asset management software, and the subsequent release of a new and improved version of PhillyHistory.org, powered by Sajara.

Philadelphia's City Archives, managed by the City of Philadelphia's Department of Records (DoR), contains an estimated 2 million photographs, some dating back to the 1860s. In 2004, the DoR partnered with Avencia to develop PhillyHistory.org. The development of PhillyHistory.org was motivated by the DoR's desire to create a web-based system for managing and preserving the City Archives' extensive collection of photographic assets while simultaneously making them more readily available to the public at large and becoming a revenue generator for the City. Among many other powerful capabilities, the new version of PhillyHistory.org includes features that enable multiple organizations to contribute material to a single shared system, improved search features and support for other media, such as recordings, drawings, music, etc.
--- Read the 5/9/07 Philadelphia Inquirer article about the project, including a "Now and Then" slide show ---

In the past few years, many archives, libraries, and special collections have begun digitizing their contents and making them available to the public on the web and most of these support searches via keyword, topic or date. As the world of digital information becomes more accepted as a legitimate source for academic, genealogical, and public user research, the demand for publicly accessible data rises and so does the need for comprehensive digital asset management (DAM) applications that have both a web and a collection management interface. While many DAM applications exist, few offer the ability to search for images based on location. Sajara adds this geographic dimension, enabling search by address, intersection, place name, and neighborhood.

While a recent New York Times article by Katie Hafner noted that "for every letter from Abraham Lincoln to William Seward that can be found online, millions of documents … will never be digitized,"¹ the Philadelphia Department of Records has demonstrated vision and commitment towards the preservation and accessibility of its photo archives. It is our hope that Sajara, by making digital asset management, preservation, and accessibility easier and more flexible will assist other archival organizations, especially if their assets are location-based or geographic in nature.

Sajara is built using software from Avencia's business partner, ESRI whose ArcGIS Server and ArcIMS products are used for map generation.

Visit the new PhillyHistory.org and read more about our Sajara software.

¹ Hafner, Katie. "History, Digitized (and Abridged)." New York Times. 11 March, 2007.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/business/yourmoney/11archive.html?
ex=1331179200&en=1b38c43bcbe04b6b&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

What the Heck is a Web Service?
Robert Cheetham

In addition to development of custom GIS web applications, Avencia has been developing web services for the past few years. What exactly are web services? They are a standards-based way to provide software building blocks over a network. They are not complete web applications on their own. Rather, they are small pieces of capability that can be combined to build new applications. A web service is also sometimes called a Web API (Application Programming Interface).

One web service that Avencia developed and hosts is Cicero. Cicero is a legislative district locator, elected official database, and legislative mapping service that provides data on local, state, and national legislatures. It is being used to support political advocacy campaigns and data integration.

ESRI also offers a suite of web services known as ArcWeb Services that provides geocoding, spatial query, and map generation capabilities that can be integrated into any application with access to the web. Several of Avencia's web applications use ArcWeb Services, including Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children's (DVAEYC) CONNECT Services. This application uses ArcWeb for routing and geocoding. The key advantage is that the service provider (ESRI) takes responsibility for providing up-to-date street data, and we can focus on how we want the application to use the data instead of managing it ourselves.

Web services can also be chained together so that one building block is used by another to provide a new capability. For example, in Cicero, we use ArcWeb Services for locating addresses, but then we use the Cicero data for looking up the legislative districts, creating maps or finding data about legislators for the location. When web services are linked together like this into a more complex system, it is sometimes known as a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA).

Web services are a fundamental part of the Web 2.0 revolution that focuses on making data open and easily sharable. There are several web sites that facilitate working with web services. Programmable Web is sort of like a phone book for public web API's. OpenKapow enables users to develop their own web services that consist of sequences of actions one would take on a web site to view data or perform an activity. And Yahoo! Pipes enables users to combine sequences of RSS feeds into customized data streams.

OJJDP Implements SMART On The Kaleidocade Platform
Chip Hitchens and Robert Cheetham



Avencia announces the public release of the first national-scale implementation of our Kaleidocade Indicators Framework (KIF): The Socioeconomic Mapping and Resource Topography (SMART) system, developed for the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). Kaleidocade is a unique web-based software framework used for visualizing geographically aggregated data as maps, tables, charts, statistics, and trends, which fit perfectly with OJJDP’s requirements.

The OJJDP supports state and local juvenile justice systems and programs nationwide, and sponsors research and training related to juvenile justice issues. In order to more effectively match resources and needs, they sought to develop a system that would merge a wide range of data sources such as demographics, crime, risk factors, education, economics, and grant resources, to support the identification of emerging issues and assist decision makers in developing appropriate responses.

Avencia, under subcontract to Development Services Group, Inc. (DSG), implemented the Kaleidocade framework, which uses ESRI’s ArcIMS, ArcGIS Server and ArcWeb Services for mapping and geocoding functionality. OJJDP required a tight timeline and Phase I was finished and installed in 6 weeks. Phase II, which contains enhancements, is ongoing. SMART currently contains over 3.3 million rows of demographics, economic indicators, educational data, youth risk factors, and statistical indexes—more than 100 different indicators aggregated to states, counties, and census tracts throughout the entire United States. Kaleidocade brings all of this data to the people who need it, in a way they can easily understand, summarize, and analyze.

To view the SMART application, visit http://smart.gismapping.info. For more information on Kaleidocade, please visit www.avencia.com/products.aspx or contact info@avencia.com.

2007 Nonprofit Technology Conference
Rachel Cheetham-Richard

We experienced this first-hand at the NTEN (Nonprofit Technology Network) Conference in Washington, D.C in April. When one of our colleagues told us about this conference, we did not quite know what to expect but decided we would give it try. What a treat this was!

We met people involved in environmental issues, political advocacy, arts advocacy, micro-philanthropy, social mapping, youth issues, health and human services solutions, gays and lesbians’ rights, women’s rights, micro loans in India, Kung Fu and Lion Dance (yes! Indeed), workforce philanthropy, neighborhood revitalization, citizens’ rights, digital storytelling initiatives … and the list goes on.

I think that people sometimes assume that nonprofits don't use or might not understand how to implement advanced technology in their daily activities. However, we attended workshops on API's, Open Source CMSs, Mashups, Video Blogging, Online Advocacy Strategies, Online Donation Tools, Email Deliverance Options, E-Newsletters, Viral Marketing, and heard how some innovative uses of Flickr, mobile technology, online social networks, and YouTube can bring communities and organizations' constituencies together. We met numerous people who knew about GIS and understood the applications and significance of spatial analyses is to support their decision-making processes.

NTEN claims that their “goal is to enable [their] members to do their jobs better, and to help their organizations strategically use technology so that they, in turn, will make the world a better, just, and equitable place.” After attending their conference, there is no doubt in our minds that their members are subscribing to and embracing this statement.

This photo states that it was taken in 1894 at the NW corner of 15th and Pennsylvania Ave.
In 1895 Pennsylvania Ave. ran along the railroad tracks that are now between Hamilton and Callowhill.
That intersection no longer exists, as Pennsylvania Ave. now ends around the intersection of 22nd and Hamilton.
We have the photo geocoded as 15th and Hamilton as that is the current address for the same location.

Creating geocoding software is almost never a simple process. The more variables involved in the software, the more complex the geocoding process becomes. One of these variables is time and the change of place names over time. In our spare time we have been developing an application called a Historic Geocoder, through which we aim to address the difficulties of geocoding historic pieces of information with a ‘current’ set of location data.

A good example of an Avencia application that uses geocoding is PhillyHistory.org, a publicly accessible site run by the City of Philadelphia Department of Records and City Archives. The site is a searchable collection of some of the approximately 2 million historic photos stored in the City Archives. A unique feature of the site is that a visitor can search by a current address and find pictures near that address.

Over the years the City photographers have documented the location of each photograph by using addresses. However, the catch is that sometimes street names change. When this happens, a historic photograph with a location description that has since changed is geocoded to the wrong coordinate location or cannot be geocoded at all.

Our Historic Geocoder research project consists of three parts: a) a record of street name changes; b) a database of street segment changes; and c) software to enable time-based geocoding.

By recording not only where current streets are and what they are named, but also where streets were in the past and what they used to be called, the Historic Geocoder will provide us with the ability to geocode based on both space and time. Instead of only entering a location, a user will be able to enter a location and a date and the system then locates where the historic address was during that time period on a current map.

Historic photos are not the only records with potential historic address problems. Surveys, censuses, and legal records all use addresses to describe locations. Being able to geocode these locations with relation to time is a very important first step towards the analysis of these data. Through our R&D work on a Historic Geocoder, we hope to make it possible to more accurately assign locations for historic data.

Puzzle!
Megan Heckert

Question 1: In addition to our Philadelphia location, Avencia has offices in Seattle, Washington and Burlington, Vermont. Visit the OJJDP SMART application to learn about indicators of juvenile delinquency in those states. Under the ‘Education’ category map the % of 5 to 17 year olds not enrolled in school, 2000 by county in each of these two states. Find the top ranked county in each state and each of their values. (Note: top ranked in this case is the county with the highest percentage not in school.)

A.Which county had the higher value?
B. What was that value?

Question 2: The PhillyHistory.org website contains a link to the Historic Streets Index (under ‘Links’), which tracks street name changes over time. Visit the Historic Streets Index and type the name of the county you answered for question 1/A. The index will tell you that this street name changed into two different street names. What did it change to?

C. New Street Name #1
D. New Street Name #2

Question 3: Of the two streets identified in Question 2, only one still exists, as noted in the Historic Streets Index. Visit the Connect Services website, and search for hospitals within 1 mile of the intersection of that street + the number you found in Question 1/B.

E. How many hospitals are within 1 mile?
F. Of the hospitals located within 1 mile of that address, what is the name of the hospital located furthest to the north?

Be the first to send an email with all six correct answers to info@avencia.com and you will win a $10 gift card to Starbucks!