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International Polar Year 2007–2008 - WMO

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Building the IPY Publications Database<br />

In December 2004 the Arctic Science and<br />

Technology Information System (ASTIS) at the Arctic<br />

Institute of North America, University of Calgary,<br />

submitted an Expression of Intent (no. 462) to the<br />

IPY Joint Committee for a Canadian IPY Publications<br />

Database. Upon learning that the Joint Committee<br />

would endorse only multi-country projects, ASTIS<br />

began looking for partners for an international<br />

IPY publications database. By spring 2005, four<br />

organizations had agreed to work together to create<br />

a combined IPY Publications Database (IPYPD). Such<br />

a combined database would attempt to identify and<br />

describe all publications resulting from, or about, IPY<br />

<strong>2007–2008</strong> and the three previous IPY/IGYs. The Cold<br />

Regions Bibliography Project (CRBP) at the American<br />

Geological Institute in Alexandria, VA (U.S.A.) maintains<br />

the Bibliography on Cold Regions Science and<br />

Technology and the Antarctic Bibliography. The Scott<br />

<strong>Polar</strong> Research Institute (SPRI) Library at the University<br />

of Cambridge in U.K. produces the SPRILIB databases<br />

and assists the CRBP with the Antarctic Bibliography.<br />

The Arctic Science and Technology Information<br />

System (ASTIS) at the Arctic Institute of North America,<br />

University of Calgary, produces Canadas national<br />

northern database and other specialized databases.<br />

National Information Services Corporation (NISC) in<br />

Andhra Pradesh, India was, at that time, combining<br />

these databases and others to produce the Arctic and<br />

Antarctic Regions (AAR) database describing more<br />

than one million publications related to polar regions.<br />

These four organizations established an informal<br />

consortium and prepared a joint proposal to create<br />

the IPYPD as part of the IPY Data and Information<br />

Service (IPYDIS), which was led by the U.S. National<br />

Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University<br />

of Colorado. The IPY Joint Committee endorsed the<br />

proposal (IPY no. 51) 3 in August 2005. During 2006<br />

the members of the consortium began creating new<br />

records for IPY publications, as well as identifying<br />

existing IPY/IGY publication records in their databases.<br />

Beginning in September 2006, programmers at NISC’s<br />

related company, NISC Export Services Pvt. Ltd. (NES),<br />

used ideas and feedback from the other members<br />

of the consortium to create the IPYPD database and<br />

website. In early 2007 the Discovery and Access of<br />

Historic Literature of the IPYs (DAHLI) project at the<br />

U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center joined the<br />

IPYPD consortium to provide coverage of publications<br />

it collected from the first three IPY/IGYs (IPY 1882-1883,<br />

IPY 1932-1933 and IGY 1957-1958).<br />

The IPYPD was made available online at www.nisc.<br />

com/ipy on 1 March, 2007, the first day of IPY 2007–<br />

2008.<br />

NISC has since been purchased by EBSCO<br />

Publishing, which began producing AAR in-house<br />

in summer 2009. Because EBSCO does not have the<br />

ability to accept records from the many polar libraries<br />

and databases that were contributing records to AAR,<br />

no records from those sources, or from the IPYPD,<br />

have been added to AAR since that time. NES was<br />

not purchased by EBSCO, and continues to make the<br />

IPYPD available.<br />

Aspects of the Database Design<br />

As described in more detail elsewhere (Goodwin<br />

et al., 2007; Goodwin et al., 2010a; 2010b), the IPYPD<br />

makes use of the existing system for indexing polar<br />

literature. Depending on their subject and geographic<br />

scope, IPY <strong>2007–2008</strong> publications are reported to<br />

ASTIS, CRBP or the SPRI Library. Simplified somewhat,<br />

the rule that researchers are requested to follow is that<br />

publications about northern Canada are reported to<br />

ASTIS, about the Antarctic and about non-living things<br />

to CRBP, and about biological and human research<br />

to SPRI. The number of indexing organizations was<br />

deliberately limited to three in order to avoid making<br />

this reporting rule more complicated. The three<br />

organizations prepare records in their usual ways for<br />

use in their existing databases, but tag IPY records so<br />

that they can be identified and sent to NES quarterly<br />

for inclusion in the IPYPD.<br />

Publications from the first three IPY/IGYs are<br />

identified, indexed and digitized by the DAHLI project,<br />

as that project’s resources allow. In addition, the<br />

other three indexing organizations are identifying<br />

publications from previous IPYs that are already in<br />

their databases, and doing some new indexing of<br />

publications from previous IPY/IGYs. Records from<br />

the first three IPY/IGYs are tagged for inclusion in the<br />

IPYPD in the same manner as records for IPY 2007–<br />

2008 publications. The IPYPD Basic search page allows<br />

users to restrict their searches to any of the four IPY/<br />

IGYs by using the “IPY” menu, as shown in Fig. 4.2-1.<br />

P u b l I C P r o g r a m s a n d e d u C a t I o n 499

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