[ESIP-all] Important Data session at AGU

[Mark A. Parsons]

Fellow ESIPers,

I wish to call your attention to a unique session at AGU this year  
that could be of interest to many ESIP Federation members--"U08 The  
Library - Data Center Alliance in Earth and Space Sciences."

In this session we seek to broaden and raise the profile of some of  
the discussion that has been occurring in the Federation for years. We  
have lined up some excellent invited speakers, and the session is  
getting good attention and will have high visibility as a Union  
session. We are getting good interest from the library world, but I  
want to be sure we get good submissions from data centers and their  
ilk too. Please consider submitting an abstract.

Abstracts are due 10 Sept. at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm08/index.php/Program/HomePage

Cheers,

-m.

Session U08: The Library - Data Center Alliance in Earth and Space  
Sciences
Conveners: Mark A. Parsons, National Snow and Ice Data Center, and
Rajendra Bose, Columbia University Center for Digital Research and  
Scholarship

Invited Speakers:
Peter Burnhill--EDINA Data Centre, University of Edinburgh (invited)
Christopher Fox--Director, National Geophysical Data Center  
(confirmed) 	
Carlos Morais-Pires--European Commission eScience initiative (confirmed)
James Neal--Dean, Columbia University Library (confirmed)
Lucy Nowell--National Science Foundation Office of Cyberinfrastructure  
(invited)

Description:  Preserving, sharing, and understanding the diverse and  
growing collection of Earth and space science data and information  
require sustained commitment and diverse expertise. Recent reports  
from national and international scientific organizations increasingly  
emphasize professional and collaborative approaches to managing data  
and information, especially supporting interdisciplinary science. The  
electronic Geophysical Year (eGY) promotes this professional  
development and collaboration. In particular, eGY recognizes the  
conceptual alliance between today's research libraries and scientific  
data centers, and promotes partnerships, collaboration and even  
hybrids of these two types of enterprises to meet the Earth science  
informatics challenge.

Research libraries have a long, sustained, and respected role as  
curators of Earth science information and knowledge. Yet, in recent  
decades, scientific data centers have also played an increasingly  
important role in stewarding Earth science data and information.  
Libraries seek to extend their expertise to manage new forms of  
digital publication, including data. Data centers seek to develop  
sustained, long-term archival systems. It is apparent; the two  
communities should collaborate to achieve their complementary  
objectives.

This session aims to bring together members of both the research  
libraries and the data center communities to survey and compare  
approaches, philosophies, and long-term strategies for dealing with  
the problems of managing digital scientific data collections, and  
invites submissions regarding issues and approaches for archiving,  
serving, and curating such collections. An emphasis on support of  
interdisciplinary science is encouraged.


-- 
Mark A. Parsons
Manager, International Polar Year Data and Information Service
Co-Chair, International Polar Year Data Policy and Management  
Subcommittee
National Snow and Ice Data Center/World Data Center for Glaciology
University of Colorado, 449 UCB, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0449, USA
+1-303-492-2359, +1-303-492-2468 (fax)
http://nsidc.org, http://ipydis.org