Online access to NODC information services

Oceanographic data holdings of the National Oceanographic data Center (NODC) are large and varied. A goal at NODC is to provide timely information about those data to users by online computer access. Recently, NODC has developed a prototype system, called NOSIE (NODC Ocean Science Information Exchange), that includes descriptions of NODC data files, helps for sending or ordering data, interactive inventory summaries, and bulletin boards. NOSIE is a menu-driven, modular system to which information resources of various types can easily be added. It was designed using system software for screen management to provide a consistent look and feel during each session. Future plans are to expand inventory summaries, add detailed inventories, and make subsets of ocean files or special data sets directly accessible online