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nstory / collection_boxes

Documenting the current state of USPS Collection Boxes
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FOIA excel file missing collection box location #4

Open mpot34 opened 4 years ago

mpot34 commented 4 years ago

Hi - I don't use github so I'm really not sure how this is supposed to go, but I have a question. I found your website ( https://tools.usps.com/find-location.htm ) and clicked the data button at the bottom leading me here. I want to use the data for GIS purposes for a class project. When I downloaded the FOIA zip file and looked at the excel file, I compared the locations your website lists for a specific town (just to cross check) in California to the data within the table, and the data table only lists one post office within the city while your website shows roughly 15. What happened to them and where can I find these locations with their latitude and longitude?

Another question - do you have the metadata for this? I wanted to filter by post offices and collection boxes, however, I'm not sure what all the different codes within the FACILITY_SUBTYPE refer to. Any help would be appreciated.

Again, sorry, I never use github, I just stumbled across this data and would love to use it. Not sure if there is a private message feature or some easier way to discuss? Thank you!

nstory commented 4 years ago

Hey there!

One clarification: https://tools.usps.com/find-location.htm is the official post office locator tool from USPS. I am not affiliated with that tool or the USPS. https://mailboxlocate.com/ is the site I do run

One thing to watch out for: when you enter a zip code, the USPS tool searches a radius around that zip code (by default 20 miles). When you saw 15 results, were those all in the town you checked, or were some of them in neighboring towns?

I'm also not sure what the different FACILITY_SUBTYPE values mean, and I don't have a data dictionary that defines them. I know that the coll report.xlsx file contains collection boxes and the facility records.xlsx file contains post offices.

I think it's okay to discuss here. It makes the conversation visible for people who have similar questions in the future!

mpot34 commented 4 years ago

Hey,

First, I totally meant to link your site (https://mailboxlocate.com/ ) - that is what I've been using and it is GREAT. Sorry, long day on the computer.

And that second part fixed my problems - I was only looking in the facility records and didn't look close enough at coll report for the rest of the box locations. In that case, the subtype doesn't matter too much for my analysis, as they are already sorted into offices vs. boxes I now realize. Thank you for getting this data from the USPS, it is so hard to find data with latitude and longitude points that make it easy to use with ArcGIS. Hoping others see this and that it can be further be put to good use, especially with everything going on in the country right now.