Curators' Meeting May 6-8, 1996 Boulder, CO

Meeting minutes

compiled by Chris Mato

Attendees:

• Wolfgang Berger, SIO
• James Broda, WHOI
• Elsa Cortijo, CFR (CNRS/CEA lab)
• Brian Edwards, USGS
• Michael Diepenbroeck, AWI
• Dawn Graber, UMINN
• Bill Hay, GEOMAR
• Rusty Lotti, LDEO
• Chris Mato, ODP
• June Wilson, OSU
• Carla Moore, NCEI/WDS for Geophysics

Meeting Summary:

Introductions and presentations by each repository curator. Discussions included: history of the facility, existing equipment, new additions in equipment and storage facilities, special curation techniques, core imaging, and the size of the facilities.

Presentation by NGDC of the current status of the database. Review format, parameters, classification scheme, and current technology & its implications for the database. Discussed increase in usage of the NGDC Curator's database since "All things Considered" broadcast was aired. Discussions of modifications and additions to the existing Curator's database formats.

Discussion of how the curators group envisions inter-relating databases at participating institution with the central database .

Discussion of sedimentary classification schemes and a working group was formed for sediment classification.

Discuss curation issues.

Presentation of outside related programs and databases; IMAGES, SEPAN, MESH.

Action items on Curators' Database:

• 15 digits each for cruise, sample fields
• new device codes (JB action item)
• temporarily add sediment trap, multicorer, kastenlot as 1-digit alpha to present list
• add '19' to year
• expand precision of lat/lon to hundredths of minutes available
• add flag to lat/lon for original location type: decimal degrees or minutes
• consensus do not add core condition code
• consensus current storage codes are okay
• images - consensus add capability to link directly to image, or to site with image, or to information that image exists at facility, with link to facility
• expand depth to top/bottom of interval to have tenths of cm (mm) precision capability
• add province code for salt water inland lakes
• add field for standardized Munsell color code to curators' database - use standard translation list
• drop the current multi-card, fixed-field format as an exchange mechanism
• send in digital information to NGDC even though it may not include the core description and analyses, and sampling may still be restricted to the original scientific group
• NGDC will put a flag in the NGDC Curator database those materials that are no longer available
• NGDC should only get corrected water depths
• round off the diameter of the core, and put actual diameter in the core comments
• NGDC will rename 'subdominant component' to 'other components'; four additional 'other' components fields will be added
• Wolf Berger to chair subcommittee to look into sedimentary classification schemes: subcommittee members; Tom Janecek, Phil Weaver, Bill Hay, Brian Edwards
• NGDC will provide the ability to put the sediment trap locations and investigator information into the Curator's database
• meta data will be kept at NGDC, ancillary core data will be kept at the institute level which will be available for user access through the local curator. Should the institute no longer be capable or willing to provide the ancillary data to the user, the institute will provide the data to NGDC/World Data Center for MGG, Boulder.

Other action items:

• Jim Broda to review device codes, propose new coding scheme/list. All participants to forward device code lists to Jim as input & review proposed new list via list server. Participants provide lists to Jim by 1 June, completion by September 1996.
• Brian representing USGS/NGDC to check into JAVA security issues and report to group (due June 30 1996)
• Jim Broda to supply translation routine for Munsell color codes to English equivalents via his worker Roger
• NGDC will revise entry/edit programs to new specifications, and add translations from additional classification schemes (Shepard, etc.) in consultation with June Wilson
• Rusty will check with TESH meeting participants for additional information.
• Dawn will provide NGDC with a list of lake description terminology, NGDC will incorporate them into the sample descriptors.
• effective May 1996, with the understanding that historical files will be updated as time/funds/students become available; that cores with no recovery will be clearly flagged and sent to NGDC. If comments are available then they should be included with data submitted to NGDC
• review current list server subscription (accomplished at meeting) NGDC will send out messages asking subscribers to confirm their wish to be on the list
• each institute repository provide facility statistics such as: storage capacity/growth numbers, number of new meters that can be stored in the existing area, costs for core racks to store additional cores.
• Alan Mix should provide a "strawman" list for discussion of which basic tools and services which should be common to all repositories. The discussion could be conducted over the list server.
• NGDC to create a Curator WWW page with links to special pages created and maintained at each institution to post curatorial "news" - Draft will be non-public, after testing, the group will decide which parts to be public/non-public. The list server & list archive page will remain non-public
• Chris Mato put a copy of sections from the curatorial cookbook on the Curator WWW page.
• Carla provide a means to ftp electronic files from the WWW.

Other notes:

• from this point forward curators encouraged not to use abbreviations in comments field or to break words between lines in comments field if using old format for data submission
• images to be stored in JPEG format for high resolution & long-term storage, GIF format for low resolution on-line viewing. NGDC will assist with either scanning, storage, access to images as requested by individual facilities
• each institution will follow their institute sample distribution policy