Data Handling for Science and Technology

Abstract

This book is concerned with publishing numerical scientific data, gaining access to it, and ascertaining its reliability. The intended audience includes " ... people who generate, publish, abstract, collect, evaluate, repackage, disseminate and apply data ... or are involved in providing training courses in the handling of data ... or in administering funding for all these activities. "A definitive treatment of each of these aspects would not ha ve been feasible; instead, a guidebook -a set of signposts - is being offered to point the way through the extensive bibliographies appended to the individual chapters. The book has been developed as a joint enterprise between CODATA (The Committee on Data for Science and Technology established by the International Council of Scientific Unions) and Unesco within the UNISIST framework and the Unesco General Information Programme. CODATA's prime concern is "to improve the quality, reliability, or accessibility of data of importance to science and technology. "The aim of the Unesco General Information Programme is "development and promotion of information systems and services at the national, regional and international levels."The UNISIST programme, now incorporated within the General Information Programme, aims at the ultimate establishment of a voluntary network of the world's information systems and services in order to facilitate information transfer to the international scientific communities. This joint endeavour thus represents a step toward the achievement of goals for both organizations. The need for such a volume was perceived by Professor Masao Kotani (President of the Science University of Tokyo, then Chairman of the CODATA Task Group on Accessibility and Dissemination of Data and a Japanese delegate on the UNISIST Steering Committee, and now President of CODATA). With support granted by Unesco to CODATA the authors of the various chapters and the editorial team of Drs. S. A. Rossmassler and D. G. Watson expeditiously assembled the text. It has been observed that "A scientific document is a package of information containing data, analysis, and interpretation in varying proportions. As the document becomes older, the value of the data will be enhanced relative to that of the analysis and interpretation - except to the historian -,"[R. N. Jones, cited in UNISIST Advisory Committee minutes, (1976)] hence the importance of developing techniques for data handling and management. In the physical sciences the data are usually sufficiently well defined to be clearly separable from interpretation, but in the biological and geological sciences the distinction between data and interpretation is, in sorne instan ces, far more difficult. For this reason special attention has been given to data handling on the bioand geo-sciences. The book addresses itself, therefore, to producers and users of data (and normally a scientist is both) as well as to information specialists increasingly called upon to provide numerical data to scientific users. It should prove invaluable in scientific libraries and other information centres in both developed and developing countries. It is a book which by its very nature is timely and necessary, and yet will clearly require periodic revision since it is concerned with a rapidly developing field.