The increasing importance of HSMDB metadata

Since its beginning in 1997, the Hydrographic Surveys Meta Database (HSMDB) has grown from simply tracking descriptive report and survey images sent to the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) to generating a series of metadata products. At MTS 2005, the first HSMDB general outline was presented. A tutorial on the menu driven query utility was given at MTS 2008. This paper focus on the increasing importance of the HSMDB to the Office of Coast Survey and its stakeholders. Hydrographic survey metadata is no longer just focused measuring and improving ping to chart time (i.e. data throughput). This paper emphasizes the new product line: hydrographic survey rap sheets, hydrographic survey descriptive reports, data acquisition and processing reports (new), tide note and zoning graphics (new), and project sketches and bottom samples. Planned survey accuracy, spatial overlays and decision support query are also discussed. The importance of the new metadata products is supported by estimated time savings in metadata acquisition and display and metadata user trends. Statistical evidence is provided by NGDC Web Server Statistics access reports of requests for the last 3 years.