Online Ecological and Environmental Data

Book excerpt: Discover important Internet resources for research data made public individually and collectively by researchers from a variety of entities in the fields of environmental studies and ecology Online Ecological and Environmental Data explores innovative projects from a diverse array of institutions that have made environmental and ecological research information freely available online. You will find a wealth of Web site listings with URLs and complete descriptions, data field descriptions, controlled vocabulary examples, and Web screen shots that demonstrate how to use a specific site. The book will help you locate the data, procedures, instruments, notes, and other descriptive information that scientists and engineers need for replicating and building on the research of others. With Online Ecological and Environmental Data, you'll gain a better understanding of: * the cooperative design, development, and management of interdisciplinary data * cataloging multidisciplinary environmental data * data networking * new developments in information science and technology * extracting and compiling data * the convergence and dissemination of information via the Internet This unique resource explores the potential of distributing actual research data on the Web. The information you'll find in this book will enable science and technology librarians to provide effective access to library patrons. Online Ecological and Environmental Data will give librarians and other information specialists—as well as faculty and students in library sciences and technology—cutting-edge knowledge to meet the global data and information needs of the scientific community. The projects described in this book can serve as models for other disciplines, especially for the various aspects of handling data made available online, and for making this data more available and usable on the Internet for researchers and students.