Directory Population Efforts at the Global Change Master Directory (GCMD)

Gene R. Major
Global Change Master Directory
Hughes STX
7701 Greenbelt Road, Suite 400
Greenbelt, MD 20770
Phone: 301-441-4199
FAX:   301-441-9486
Email: major@gcmd.gsfc.nasa.gov

Lola M. Olsen
Global Change Master Directory
Code 902.2
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, MD 20770
Phone: 301-286-9760
Email: olsen@gcmd.gsfc.nasa.gov


Tom Northcutt

John Scialdone

Ron Vogel

Hughes STX
7701 Greenbelt Road, Suite 400
Greenbelt, MD 20770

Traditionally, datasets needed by the general scientific community
were usually available only through data archives or large data
centers.  With the tremendous advance in online information networks
like the World-Wide Web (WWW) and the associated development of
sophisticated search and retrieval tools, the availability of online
research data outside of the traditional data center has grown.
Locator systems for online datasets as well as datasets held at
traditonal archives would aid the researcher in locating and
accesing datasets.

The Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) already provides online
access to a database of information describing the content and
location of Earth science datasets through a WWW interface [1].  The
database has been manually populated with dataset descriptions in the
Directory Interchange Format (DIF) either by dataset providers or GCMD
discipline coordinators.  However, in order to take advantage of the
rapid proliferation of online information from many potential
providers, new population strategies and outreach, including automated
population systems, need to be considered to greatly enhance the
ability to locate and access these datasets.

This presentation will describe the efforts of the GCMD staff to
populate the database with information describing datasets that are
made available by a number of data providers including: required DIF
providers, primary and secondary data centers, international programs,
university and academia, commercial and industry interests, defense,
and local and state governments.  Population strategies will be
discussed including the automated generation of directory information
from online datasets and the availability of DIF authoring tools.

[1] GCMD URL:  http://gcmd.gsfc.nasa.gov