June 17th, 2013
Call for Volunteers to Update the FGDC United States Thoroughfare, Landmark, and Postal Address Data Standard

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URISA, in conjunction with NENA (the National Emergency Number Association), is calling for volunteers to assist with an update to the FGDC United States Thoroughfare, Landmark, and Postal Address Data Standard.

URISA’s Address Standard Working Group (ASWG), a collaboration of volunteers from over 50 federal, state, tribal, local and private organizations, was convened in 2005 to draft an address data standard for submission to the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC). That task culminated in February 2011 with the formal endorsement of the United States Thoroughfare, Landmark, and Postal Address Data Standard by the FGDC. The US Census Bureau is the maintenance authority for the Standard.
 
Since the endorsement in 2011, some issues and problems with the current version of the Standard have been brought to light, and opportunities for collaboration have been identified to improve the standard.
 
Under the auspices of the US Census Bureau, the ASWG is reconvening  to draft a revision to the current version of the Standard to:

• Correct typos, errors and omissions in the standard
• Make adjustments to improve and ease the implementation and usage of the standard
• Improve its coordination with other national and international standards
• Correct any issues that have arisen due to implementation of the Standard
• The ASWG is aware that agencies, entities, and individuals have made significant investments in the current version of the Standard.

To protect their investments, the revision will:

• Be backward compatible with the current version of the Standard
• Not impose hardship on those who have already started or completed implementation

If you have professional or academic expertise in address or information exchange systems, you are encouraged to volunteer by sending an email to Keri Brennan at URISA Headquarters ([email protected]) by Monday, July 15.