5th Annual Atmospheric Science Librarians International Conference
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Wednesday, JANuary 16, 2002
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| 8:30am | Registration and Coffee |
| 9:00am | ASLI Roundtable Discussion Moderator: Doria Grimes ASLI members and attendees will describe their libraries and unique collections, new resources and special projects. This is also an opportunity to distribute new brochures, other descriptive materials and contact info to attendees.Registration and coffee began at 8:30am with a Welcome Address given by Doria B. Grimes, Librarian, NOAA Central Library, Silver Spring, MD, Chair of ASLI. Madeleine Needles (MIT Haystack Obs.) and Judie Triplehorn (Geophysical Institute, Univ. of Alaska) were introduced as two of the charter members of ASLI. There is a new editor of BAMS, who wants shorter articles and more pictures or diagrams. He also wants more representation from the different chapters. ASLI has acquired Tax Exempt status. Doria then introduced the present officers: Doria B. Grimes-Chair; Jinny Nathans-Chair-elect; Susan Tarbell-Secretary; and Robert Britter-Treasurer. Membership Chairman is Evelyn Poole-Kober, and Judie Triplehorn is Field Trip Chairman.The first session, Roundtable discussion, was held starting at 9:00 am, moderated by Doria B. Grimes. Each person gave a short presentation about their library and its unique collection. Some people gave out brochures and went online to their library’s website. 24 people participated in this endeavor. Judie Triplehorn has a Japanese Cataloger who would be happy to help other people with almost any Asian cataloging. Overall, ASLI had 38 people take part in their conference, attending various parts. |
| 10:00am | Break |
| 10:15am | Session 2: Digitization and Access Moderator: Jinny Nathans Digitization and Bibliographic Control: Metadata, Networked Resources, and the Web. Priscilla Caplan, Assistant Director for Digital Library Services, Florida Center for Library Automation (Invited Presentation)Cataloging is a form of Metadata. How do we describe this new kind of cataloging? Maybe MARC is not the answer. You can’t just say that good Metadata is good MARC cataloging; depends on the use and collection itself. There are three considerations for using Metadata for digitization projects: 1)What level of resources does your project have to devote to description? 2)What is the expertise of the creators? and 3) Who are the expected users, and what are the expected uses? Six principles to use for Metadata cataloging are: 1) Good Metadata should be appropriate to the materials in the collection, users of the collection, and intended, current and likely use of the digital object; 2) Good Metadata supports interoperability; 3) Good Metadata uses standard controlled vocabularies to reflect the what, where, when and who of the content; 4) Good Metadata includes a clear statement on the conditions and terms of use for the digital object; 5) Good Metadata records are objects themselves and therefore should have the qualities of good objects, including archivability, persistence, unique identification, etc. They should be authoritative and verifiable; and 6) Good Metadata supports the long-term management of objects in collections. Who owns the source becomes an important question. |
| 11:00am | Planning for Digital Projects: Issues and Examples. Kristi Jensen, Earth Sciences Librarian, and Linda Musser, Director, Fletcher L. Byrom Earth and Mineral Science Library, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PAPennsylvania State University, said that digitization is not always user driven. It can be management driven; who can reboot, and how much will it be used. Why digitize at all: provides greater access to high demand or restricted access items; increases users’ ability to manipulate images and text; provides worldwide access to local resources; and allows the creation of a virtual collection of related materials now found in separate collections. However, remember that digitization is NOT preservation. Material selection raises several questions: 1) What added value will result with the digital edition? 2) What are your users’ priorities? 3) What’s been done already? An example of this is “Making of America” project done by both the University of Michigan and Cornell University. 4) What can be funded? and 5) What is easiest to do -Ownership/Copyright issues?The scope and planning of your digitization project is very important. What will the end product(s) look like, and how much material is involved? How many different sizes and formats of your digital output are needed and can it be done well technologically? How much wear and tear of material you are digitizing? Can this project be completed in-house or will it require vended services? Quality control is very important and will take lots of time. Server space and access raises some concerns also. How much storage space is required? Who owns/funds/maintains the server space? Who is authorized for access? How will usage be measured? What equipment is needed? What personnel needs are required? What cataloging and Metadata is necessary for the project? With Web access and design, who will create search and retrieval tools and other navigational aids? All these questions need to be addressed before starting your digitization project. You also need to know how you want your material cited and what publicity will take place. |
| 12:00pm | Lunch |
| 1:15pm | Session 2 continued
Digitization of Meteorological Data and Public Access. The goal of this project is to preserve and disseminate unique climatological data by providing full text images in PDF and TIFF format. Initially the project included data from developing countries. Since September 11th, however, emphasis was shifted to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Dr. John Griffith from Texas A&M, and Dr. Tom Peterson from National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, NC, made recommendations of what countries to do first. Along with the Middle East, the Caribbean area and the countries from the former Soviet bloc were their recommendations. The NOAA Central Library selected items from its collection based upon uniqueness of the observations within the publications, and the deteriorating condition of these items. The time period of coverage ranged from the 1830’s through the 1960’s. Access point to the NOAA Central Library is www.lib.noaa.gov. The access point to the Climate Data Imaging Project is http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/data_rescue_home.html. Doria showed an example of this project with an overhead of Sitka, Alaska. The Russians did a very thorough job of taking hourly measurements. Their next project is to help the AMS with digitizing Monthly Weather Review. Air Force Weather Technical Library – Electronic Library Project This is a work in progress. The tasking came from Ft. Bragg, and the subtask from an NCDC digitization project. The Mission of the Air Force Combat Climatology Center (AFCCC) is to collect, maintain, and apply worldwide weather data, creating climatological products to strengthen the combat capability of America’s warfighters. The AFWTL Mission is to provide weather, climatology, space weather and selected geophysical information to decision makers; provide deployed personnel with vital information; provide technical information to scientists to prevent research duplication and to further research; provide weather school and AFIT trainers the latest scientific information; and disseminate technical data to other libraries. The Library decided to digitize the TFRNs (Terminal Forecast Reference Notebook) and LCSs (Local Forecasting Study) that were put out by various military weather stations around the world and shelved in the library. This was in conjunction with the AFWTL and AFCCC missions to better help the Air Force warfighter. The TFRNs and LCSs provide general weather patterns and detailed figures on different locations, some for more that 16 years worth of data. They give 1) Location of topography, 2) Statistics on observational data; 3) Special weather phenomenon, and 4) Seasonal summaries. The CDs are in PDF and TIFF format and are available to .mil and .gov personnel. |
| 2:00pm | Session 3: Lightning Moderator: Susan TarbellLightning Safety. William P. Roeder, 45 Weather Squadron, Patrick Air Force Base, FLMr. Roeder showed a very entertaining and informative 15-minute video. Lightning kills about 100 people per year. It can strike as far as 10 miles from the parent storm. It is the underrated weather hazard. Public education is the answer. A good rule of thumb is “THOR.” T=the 30/30 rule; H=Have a plan; O=Observe; and R=React. The 30/30 rule is 30 seconds from “Flash to Bang” start counting time to thunder and seek shelter. Once in shelter wait 30 minutes to leave. A house is the best shelter but keep away from windows and unplug electrical appliances. A car is okay as long as it has a metal shell; not a convertible! Do not use a corded phone, and avoid trees and other tall buildings, plus areas of water. Ten percent of people hit by lightning are actually killed. However, you can have a lot of damage done to the body and not die. One can give first aid to a lightning victim if only hit by lightning. Lightning rods need to be installed well and maintained to be corrosive free. Lightning safety procedures are issued for 13 points on Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Patrick Air Force Base, and others. Phase 1 are lightning alerts; phase 2 are lightning warnings. Bottom line is that no place outside is safe. Lightning information is available from NWS Melbourne at www.srh.noaa.gov/mlb. |
| 2:45pm | Break |
| 3:00pm | Session 3 continued Lightning: Detection, Impacts, and Recent Topics. Ronald L. Holle, Global Atmospherics, Inc., Tucson, AZThe average temperature of lightning is 50,000 degrees. There are 10,000 megawatts for one-half of a second. For lightning to occur, you need an updraft in a cumulous cloud, and colder than freezing at the top. One-half of all lightning flashes have multiple strikes. 5-10 percent of lightning strikes do not hit the ground. There is an average of 30 flashes per square mile across central Florida, the main area of lightning in the United States. In August 2000, there were 550,000 flashes. Annual storm-related deaths during the month of August from 1966-1995 produced these results: Floods=135; Lightning=85; Hurricanes=73, and Tornadoes=25. The rate dropped during the 20th century from 6.0 to 0.5 deaths per one million people (U.S., Canada, Spain statistics). Mr. Holle also stated that lightning is the most highly underrated damage in dollars.Recent topics spoken about included bow echoes and gust fronts. Mr. Holle showed many pictures of each of these weather phenomena and gave statistics about them. |
| 3:45pm | Sessions end for the day. Exhibit Hall open until 6:00pm |
| 7:30pm | Annual ASLI Dinner ASLI Members are invited to attend the AMS Annual Awards Banquet. Tickets may be purchased when you register for the ASLI Conference. |
Thursday, JANuary 17, 2002
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| 8:30am | Coffee |
| 9:00am | Session 4: The Information Profession Moderator: Judie TriplehornInformation-Seeking Behavior of Meteorologists: Access and Retrieval of Cited References Dr. Julie Hallmark, Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TXThis was a follow-up analysis of last year’s talk. In the past, customer access and retrieval of scientific journals was done either by purchasing the print journal or borrowing it through inter-library loan. Things have changed now and meteorologists are using electronic means of retrieving the article(s). However, will electronic backfiles be kept forever? The cost has doubled for online access in many instances; will the end-user have to belong to everything in order to view anything? Communication with patrons is more important now than ever before. Dr. Hallmark did research on 100 individual authors (meteorologists); 63 were academic, 31 were government, and 6 were from private institutes or commercial. She asked each of them to fill out a brief survey, not a questionnaire, so more apt to respond. Each author was asked how they found out or first became aware of journal articles that they had cited (access); and how they obtained the article (retrieval). There was a 52 percent return rate of the survey, with 25 percent of these people never having used an electronic journal. Thirty-seven percent of the responders learned of the journal article they cited through a reference in a publication which they read; thirty percent through a suggestion, reprint, or preprint from a colleague; twelve percent through ISI’s Web of Science; twelve percent through an accidental discovery; and ten percent through miscellaneous ways. Forty-six percent of the responders obtained the journal article through their library which subscribes to this journal (either electronic or print, or both); twenty-four percent through a preprint or reprint from the author; thirteen percent through their own personal journal collection; six percent through a colleague; six percent from the publication directly; and five percent in miscellaneous ways. The responders had very positive comments about their libraries and librarians. Usage of the library depends on proximity. Also, the library link needs to be close to the first Web page. If a user can not find the library link within three clicks; will often give up. The problem of using some data is there is no standard format for data. The graphics can be fuzzy, unnecessary, blurry, cluttered, or have unclear colors. |
| 10:15am | Break |
| 10:30am | Report on the Congress on the History of Science, Commission on the History of Meteorology Jinny Nathans, Archivist, American Meteorological Society, Boston, MAThe formation of the International Commission on History of Meteorology (ICHM) was founded in Mexico City, on July 11, 2001. The goal of the ICHM is to promote scholarly study of the history of meteorology, climatology, and related sciences. The Commission hopes to get together every 5 years. As of January 17, 2002, there are 87 members from 18 countries. There are also available associate memberships and institutional memberships. The website for this new commission is http://www.colby.edu/ichm/index.htm. |
| 11:00am | AMS Publications Update: What’s New. Ken Heideman, Director of Publications and Keith Seitter, Deputy Executive Director, American Meteorological Society, Boston, MAKen stated that the public gets information 5 months earlier than 2 years ago from the nine print journals (including BAMS) and one online journal, Earth Interactions. He and his staff of 23 people are good contacts for us. The phone number is 617-227-2426, ext. 303. His email is kheideman@ametsoc.org. Jeff Rosenfeld is the new chief editor of BAMS and wants to highlight ASLI issues in an upcoming journal. There are about 21,000 pages generated in a year. Mr. Rosenfeld said there are new author guidelines. His email is jrosenfeld@ametsoc.org.Keith Seitter stated that some of the articles in BAMS will give brief descriptions in the print journal, but the researcher can find all the statistics or whatever online if they want to read that material. You now have a pay per view option if you don’t have any other way to see the article (a non-subscriber). This option cost about $20.00 an article through Infotrieve, Inc. The Executive Council has agreed to make journals free access after 5 years, but not public domain as the articles are still copyrighted. The Legacy Collection (pre-1997 articles) will still be available at lower costs. It will have a 25 percent cut this year. Eventually, it will go down to zero costs once the loan is paid off. After that all volumes older than 5 years will be opened for free access. Mr. Seitter emphasized that a person who does not have a computer or computer access will not be able to see the full article. |
| 11:30am | Meteorological and Geophysical Abstracts: What’s New Vicki Soto and Michael Miyazaki, Cambridge Scientific AbstractsThe MGA has moved to Cambridge Scientific Abstracts control. The researcher can get full journal selections on the website www.csa.com. Their website has added the ISSN, the author’s email address, and original non-English abstracts when available. There has also been an improvement in timeliness of the abstracts. By using the Internet Database Service (IDS), a patron can link to the full text, link to the holdings, link to interlibrary loan, and finally link to document delivery. Along with a powerful Boolean advance searching capability, there is a search history feature. Every time new information comes out, they will send your new search results to you.The CSA will have CD and print subscriptions of MGA through December 2002. After that the subscriptions will be transferred to IDS. Some articles will appear only online and not in print. They are not doing away with print version any time soon. The recent ref access has the newest titles, authors, and journal titles of real interest. This access does not contain the abstract yet. |
| 12:00pm | Lunch |
| 1:15pm | Session 5: Information Providers Moderator: Jinny NathansWeb of Science and News from the Institute for Scientific Information. Patricia Sproehnle, Government Account Manager, ISI, Philadelphia, PAThe Web of Science dates back to 1945. You can explore relationships between different journals, as they are updated daily. She also talked about ISI Web of Knowledge. There are 3600+ websites, and 100,000+ documents. Results are de-duplicated. |
| 1:45pm | Elsevier, Academic Press, Kluwer
A representative from the United Kingdom Academic Press discussed some new titles of interest. There is a six-volume set of the Encyclopedia of Atmospheric Sciences coming out soon. Fairly new publications include the Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences and the Academic Press Dictionary of Science and Technology (18 volumes), print only. Atmospheric Science Letters is a new online journal only, put out by Elsevier/Academic Press. A Kluwer representative, Elizabeth Doughas, spoke about getting reference work done online. Their newest title of interest to ASLI is Encyclopedia of Environmental Science. |
| 3:00pm | Break |
| 3:15pm | ASLI Business Meeting |
| 4:30pm | Sessions end for the day. Exhibit Hall open until 6:00 p.m. |
| 7:30pm | ASLI Members are invited guests to the AMS Closing Event – refreshments provided |
Friday, JANuary 18, 2002
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| 8:30am-4:30pm | Annual ASLI Field Trip Field Trip to 45th Weather Squadron at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral. This facility provides weather forecasting for the space shuttle and unmanned rocket launches. Sign up with Judy Triplehorn (fygilib@aurora.alaska.edu) |
