The SRC Data: Background
The Secretary's Report to Congress provides important summary information about activities that Federal agencies carry out as part of their stewardship responsibilities for archeological resources. Data in the report are based on responses to an annual questionnaire distributed to Federal agencies with responsibilities for archeological resources. The original data, however, are also an important resource: it is the only data about archeological activities and resources managed by Federal agencies that are collected separately from information about other cultural resources.
Since the inception of the Secretary's Report to Congress, there has been an increasing emphasis on Federal accountability to the public. Recent reporting requirements and instruments include, for example, the Government Performance Results Act (1993) (GPRA) and the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART). These reporting requirements have increased the focus on performance reporting and reliability of the data provided for the Secretary's Report to Congress.
All of the datasets from 1985 through 2012 are available in the associated Secretary's Report to Congress (1985-1986; 1988-1990; 1991-1993; 1994-1995) or on the Archeology Program website (1987; 1996-1997; 1998-2003; 2004-2012).
In addition to the original data, Excel spreadsheets of the data from the years 1985-2009 that are comparable to data submitted in response to the 1998-2006 questionnaire are available. These data are accessible by year or by agency. A list of agency acronyms is available.