http://www.toledotalk.com/maps
Started in August 2005, but needs ongoing data maintenance. Lucas County provides a new PDF data file every month. The data is in an unstructured format. XML would be great, but that's not the case.
A script successfully processes 80% of the records. Others need manual corrections due to mispellings in street names, a missing comma, or some other unexpected formatting issue. After the corrections, these records are run through the processing script. Whatever's left, doesn't make it into the database.
The database for this map project should be updated at least every other month. It would also be nice to merge in data the state has on the sex offenders, such as a photo of the offender and a description of what the person was charged for.

This mapping tool has been updated. The data comes from the May 15, 2008 file of registered sex offenders, available at the Lucas County Sheriff's website.
posted by jr on Jun 01, 2008 at 07:03:04 pm #