"When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in 

 numbers, you know something about it." — lord kelvin 



Chapter IX 



INFORMATION MANAGEMENT 



Advances in marine science and technology depend critically upon the 

 effective flow of information — from data collectors to data consumers. If we 

 are to understand the complex nature of the marine environment and if 

 understanding is to foster achievement of practical objectives, information 

 must both be generated and made available to meet a wide variety of user 

 needs. 



Previously, oceanographic data were collected primarily by the same 

 scientists and engineers who used the data. Now, with broader ocean-related 

 activities and with data acquisition more complex and costly, the data 

 commodity must be shared among a larger number of participants. More 

 efficient recording, archival, processing and distribution systems are needed 

 to provide information services not only for the oceanographic com- 

 munity, but beyond it to a larger community of state and industrial users, 

 and public and private interests concerned with maritime policy, economic 

 development, and legal principles for effective use of the sea. 



Apart from the increases in size and complexity of the data community, 

 increases in data traffic and changes in the character of data impose new 

 problems in data management. The advent of synoptic measurement sys- 

 tems and the evolution of requirements to monitor the marine environment 

 sharply increase the sheer quantity of information to handle. As the entire 

 marine science enterprise has grown, increasingly careful consideration has 

 been given to means to minimize cost and possible waste of human 

 resources. 



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