New Partnership with NPS

GSS was recently awarded a project in collaboration with Chaco Culture National Historical Park (CHCU) in New Mexico. Together, the two entities will work to assess, organize, create metadata, and prepare over 30,000 digital image files for uploading to the public NPGallery photo-viewing portal. This process will make thousands of digital photos spanning several decades available to NPS staff and the general public for the first time.

In addition to the tasks outlined above, GSS will also be drafting two management plan documents for CHCU. The first management document will outline the specific procedures GSS will use to systematically sort and manage the digital images so that the end result conforms to NPS and CHCU expectations. The second written product will be a digital image management plan written specifically for CHCU staff. This document will provide step-by-step details for park staff, collaborators, and volunteers to follow when preparing a new digital image for uploading to NPGallery. It will outline how to attach metadata (i.e., what fields need to be completed, what the standard naming conventions are for each field, etc.), how to credit the image creator/photographer, and will detail where the files should be saved internally. The end result of this effort will hopefully provide CHCU with the resources needed to quickly save and upload digital images so that they are publicly available.

Chetro Ketl, a Chacoan “great house”, at Chaco Culture National Historical Park.