Pacific-wide marine metadata discovery, management and delivery: The PICES Metadata Federation

No abstracts are to be cited without prior reference to the author.

The member countries of the North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES) separately maintain vast quantities of marine ecosystem data. To support detection and prediction of ecosystem change in the North Pacific Ocean, it is beneficial to discover data holdings with a single search, rather than having to access each country’s records, perhaps stored in different languages and formats. We report on the creation of a PICES “metadata federation” of member countries (Canada, People’s Republic of China, Japan, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, and the United States of America). Through (1) English-language coding of metadata using the Federal Geographic Data Committee standard; (2) acquisition, installation and configuration of ANSI Z39.50-1995 (ISO 10163-1995) open-source communications software on a public-access server; and (3) registration with a clearinghouse, it is possible for any metadata-serving agency to become part of the PICES Metadata Federation. The federation enables an Internet user to search the collected metadata holdings of any or all members, thus providing access to information across national holdings in a single search. To date, metadata collections from Japan, the Russian Federation, Republic of Korea, USA and China are federated. This activity supports PICES’ goals to promote and co-ordinate marine scientific research in the northern North Pacific and adjacent marginal seas; to advance scientific knowledge about the ocean environment, global weather and climate change, living resources and their ecosystems, and the impact of human activities on them; and to promote the collection and rapid exchange of scientific information on these issues.