Member Highlight: NOAA’s National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC)

The National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) was established in 1961 and has served the Nation with unmatched expertise in the scientific stewardship of marine data and information.  NODC's unique blend of oceanographers, computer scientists, data managers, and librarians know that good decisions are based on good data.  Acquiring and archiving ocean data from all over the world and from a variety of sources, NODC provides the services and products that decision makers and researchers need.  Supported by NODC's advanced technologies are people who understand that oceanographic research, satellite and observational data collected for the public's benefit, must be archived, protected, and made available to everyone.  After all, today's data are the foundation for tomorrow's decisions.

NODC’s main campus and its Library and Information Division reside in Silver Spring, MD along-side NOAA headquarters.   Another division, known as the National Coastal Data Development Center is based in Stennis Space Center, MS with Regional Science Offices in South Carolina and Hawaii.

Interesting Project:

NODC’s collection and granule data discovery systems ( http://data.nodc.noaa.gov/geoportal ) use the open source Geoportal Server, and are a direct result of knowledge acquired at ESIP meetings and the resulting collaborations with ESIP members.  In addition, through ESIP interactions, NODC has been able to deploy and stay in touch with the latest developments on numerous interoperable data services including the OPeNDAP Hyrax Server, the Unidata THREDDS Data Server, CSW, and OpenSearch.  A more recent activity involving not just NODC, but all of NOAA, is in supporting the minting of Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) for a published data set.  NODC and NOAA are following ESIP’s Data Citation guidelines where possible, and rely heavily on the ESIP community for expertise and experience.

Why we participate in ESIP:

NODC participates in ESIP to benefit from the valuable collaboration opportunities and feedback that the Federation offers.  Through interactions with ESIP members and collaborative forums, NODC is able to leverage the experience of a much broader community to better meet its mission in a cost-effective manner.

Link: http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/
Type: !
Joined:  2003
ESIP Voting Rep:  Kenneth Casey, Ph.D.