The NOAA Archives of the 21st Century
Abstract
Early in the 21st century, the Open Archival Information System Reference Model (OAIS-RM) swept across the international digital archive community, bringing with it a common language and functional framework for the long term preservation of environmental information. The OAIS-RM has had a significant impact within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), where the archive-related roles and responsibilities of the various offices and entities within the agency were not clearly identified. This lack of clarity was especially acute with respect to interactions between the three NOAA National Data Centers - Oceanographic, Climatic, and Geophysical - and the Comprehensive Large Array-data Stewardship System (CLASS). Through 2008 and 2009, each of these offices individually, then together as a group, undertook an extensive mapping of their existing and planned capabilities to the functional entities of the OAIS-RM. The result of this process was a new clarity which puts the Data Centers forth as the NOAA Archives, with CLASS as the critical supporting information technology (IT) infrastructure. Under this new paradigm, the Data Centers lead all interactions with both data producers and consumers, reflecting their more discipline-focused involvement with and understanding of the designated communities they serve. The CLASS infrastructure focuses now on meeting the common IT requirements of the three Data Centers, reflecting its capabilities and expertise in designing and deploying rigorous IT systems. The new paradigm is allowing NOAA to move forward together in a more unified and cooperative manner, better aligned to meet the 21st century challenges of data stewardship.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2009
- Bibcode:
- 2009AGUFMIN44A..05C
- Keywords:
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- 0525 COMPUTATIONAL GEOPHYSICS / Data management;
- 1912 INFORMATICS / Data management;
- preservation;
- rescue;
- 1916 INFORMATICS / Data and information discovery;
- 1930 INFORMATICS / Data and information governance