Minutes 1998 Curators of Marine Geological Samples Meeting
THE INDEX TO MARINE GEOLOGICAL SAMPLES DATABASE REPORTCarla Moore reported on the current status of the Index to Marine Geological Samples (AKA Curators') database including database revisions, data additions, user activity, addition of a new contributors' quality-control option, and the status of action items on the database from the May 1996 Curators' meeting. The group discussed and suggested new database action items at various times during the present meeting. NGDC has made all database revisions assigned to it as action items during the 1996 Curators' meeting. NGDC created a new ORACLE version of the database in 1996, incorporating changes to parameters as voted at the 1996 meeting. An Excel spreadsheet-based entry program, posted in 1997 and modified in 1998 with input from the Curators, is currently in use. The entry program reflects the migration of the Curators' database from an "exchange format" to a free-form set of sanctioned parameters. This change has allowed inclusion of many more data fields and greater ease of data entry. Since the 1996 Curators' meeting, SIO, OSU, and URI have contributed additional sample data; the USGS has contributed basic inventory information on roughly 2,500 samples. The database now contains information on 91,409 samples, up from 75,997 in 1994. NGDC's recent acquisition of the ORACLE Webserver and associated "tool kit" has greatly enhanced its database flexibility and user interface development capability. NGDC can receive data in virtually all formats, including printed cruise reports, and is willing to do ANYTHING to help the curatorial community integrate and display data. NGDC urges the group to use these capabilities to link core photographs, logging data, cruise reports, graphic core descriptions, metadata (data about data), repository pages, or anything useful. DATABASE USAGE Since January 1, 1998, the Curators' web pages (http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/curator/) have had 32,145 hits during 5,989 user sessions, averaging 117 hits and 21 user sessions daily. Seventy three percent are from the US; 9% are of unknown origin. Of the 20% international hits from 50 countries, the top users are: the UK, Germany, Australia, Japan, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, and France (in order of usage). Users from educational institutions are the most active, followed by commercial users. Most users search by geographic area. NEW ON-LINE DATA PREVIEW OPTION Curators can now review their data in the form in which it will appear to users before NGDC uploads the file into the curators' database (following quality control by NGDC). Curators can select, view and plot data to the screen, then notify NGDC of any errors. Screen plots and color-coding are useful in spotting errors in positions. INTERFACE DEVELOPMENT Carla is developing a new interface to replace the outdated Java interface developed in 1996. She asked the group to provide suggestions to improve its "user friendliness," and/or other comments and ideas. The development URL is: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov:8800/mgg/plsql/curtest.search_screen Curators were able to view the window at the meeting and make some comments directly to Carla at the meeting. The assembled group discussed other possible modifications at various times during the meeting (See also Action Items, below).
Carla also reiterated that NGDC prefers only corrected (by Matthew's tables) water-depth data. She also suggested that contributors might want to store images in high-resolution 24-bit JPEG form, being careful to avoid the higher JPEG compression options because they degrade the image. |