Mission Statement

The Chicago Metropolitan Infobase Project has several inter-related goals:

To create a system on the World Wide Web for indexing, storing,retrieving, comparing, and analyzing images, maps, data, literature and other geographically-based materials. By "geographically-based," we mean any materials which may be related to a point or area on the earth. This system will be both a resource of information for individuals and organizations interested in Chicago, and a model for how similar systems may be set up.

 This information will include, but would by no means be limited to, maps, photographs, census data, newspaper stories, reminiscences and photos of residents, and so on. This information is held by several different institutions, is organized in many different indexing systems, and much of it is not available to the public. Scanning and uploading to the World Wide Web offers a means of preserving and allowing access to brittle or unwieldy materials. Indexing systems, including text searches and organization by geography, offers a means to quickly access and compare information in ways that previously took days. In this way, this project will increase exponentially the number of people with access to this important information. In this way, a citizen will be able to access, at home or through a public library, information previously only available to

The interface for the Metropolitan Chicago Infobase will allow users to search for documents in several ways. Traditional, text-based search engines will allow users to retrieve images by variables such as era, architect or designer, subject, author, or keyword. Users also will have access to a Geographic Information System (GIS) interface which will allow searches according to geographical attributes, such as neighborhood or street address. Since the GIS interface is graphical, users will be able to point and click to make selections. For example, a user might retrieve information on a particular property by pointing and clicking on an image on a large scale map or air view to focus in on a particular neighborhood then property, then click on that property for images and data. Eventually, the GIS interface will allow for more complex information displays, searches, and analysis. This may include overlaying images on top of one another for the purposes of comparison, searching data both by geography and text-based variables ("Find all of the Frank Lloyd Wright buildings in the Hyde Park Area"), and performing calculations related to geography ("Calculate the average age of all the buildings in a 50 block area").

One of the key aspects of our project is to avoid trying to build a large system on our own and instead to coordinate and piggy back onto the large GIS systems that are currently being developed and will be developed by dozens of other players out of necessity in order to meet their own needs. In the Chicago area, for example, the State of Illinois has already created a GIS system to manage its roads and parks. The City of Chicago has such a system in a rudimentary state. In addition, the Northern Illinois Planning Commission has created a GIS land-use map for the entire metropolitan region for areas greater than 1/4 acre. None of these systems has managed to bring the unit of analysis down to the level of the individual parcel which is the necessary prerequisite for much of the kind of analysis the Chicago Infobase wishes to accomplish. These systems, moreover, are not coordinated, and there is to date almost no provision for streamlining the process for all of the other government and not-for-profit agencies that will eventually need the same kind of GIS infrastructure for uses as diverse as maintaining highways, records, conducting epidemiological surveys, and assessing taxes. The University of Illinois hopes that by taking the lead in coordinating these efforts and bringing together the disparate players, it will gain access to very large amounts of new data of all kinds that can be useful for students at the University through the Web and, at no extra cost, to the population at large. This data, moreover, if properly maintained over time and kept accessible, will constitute and enormously important resource for historians and others in the future.

To create a framework for inter-institutional cooperation in the provision and organization of geographically-based information. Geographically-based information about Chicago is spread among several institutions and indexed in various ways. This project has and will continue to bring together a number of governmental agencies and not-for-profit institutions that own artifacts and documents or who generate geographically based information about the city, on the one hand, with institutions whose job it is to disseminate information and to educate, on the other. In this way information will be more readily shared by all of the institutions and agencies involved and more readily available to the general public.

To create an interactive system which allows individuals to evaluate materials and to add their own information. Another key element of the Metropolitan Chicago Infobase Project is its interactive nature. The unique capabilities of the World Wide Web will allow for individuals to not only view and analyze information but also to respond and add information of their own. Within this relationship, University scholars will serve as an important check, verifying and further elucidating information provided by system users. In this way, the system will be open while assuring that information is correct and creating ways to put information in context. This dynamic system will break down the boundary between author or researcher and audience. An example of one way this might work is contained in "Levittown: Documents of an Ideal American Suburb," a project by Peter Hales, one of the primary instigators of the Infobase project. This project intersperses words and pictures submitted by residents of Levittown with commentary by Peter Hales.  See Levittown.