206 EFFECTIVENESS OF THE COMMITTEE ON OCEANOGRAPHY 



One of the most important exchange agreements instituted during the last year 

 was the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). Under the 

 agreement the NODC will provide to the ICES punchcards of all of the Bulletin 

 Hydrographique (the official publication of the ICES) data for the years 1902 to 

 1956 (the latest publication) in exchange for which ICES will provide punchcards 

 of future data collections. This is an especially important exchange inasmuch as 

 the ICES embraces 16 member nations. Their files also include data submitted 

 to them by the International Commission for the North Atlantic Fisheries 

 (ICNAF). 



The International Indian Ocean Expedition (IIOE), besides affording us an 

 opportunity for further development of our new physical-chemical data form, 

 has also given us an opportunity to solidify additional international exchanges and 

 to obtain observations from one of the world's oceans for which there are very 

 few data. 



This month (March) will usher in an additional phase in the activity of the 

 center with the establishment here of World Data Center-A for oceanography 

 (WDC-A), formerly housed at Texas A. & M. College. As you may recall, the 

 World Data Centers were originally set up to cover the data activities of the IGY, 

 but by international agreement these are to be continued under the IGC, the 

 International Geophysical Cooperation, which has replaced and extended the 

 IGY activities. The establishment of the World Data Center for Oceanography 

 here will expand the international functions of the center although it should be 

 pointed out that all of the international data collecting activities will not come 

 under the WDC-A charter. Those activities which are strictly in the national 

 interest will continue to be conducted solely as an NODC function — the data 

 acquisition being accomplished either through purchase or through the interna- 

 tional exchange of forms, documents, or computer inputs. 



The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), at its Paris meet- 

 ings in October 1961, recommended the establishment of national data centers 

 by its members. Such an action by member countries will serve to facilitate 

 greatly the international exchange of data by providing intermediate focal points 

 for the assembling of information. At the present time, we find it necessary to 

 contact and negotiate with an excessively large number of individual services and 

 research institutions in order to fulfill our requirements for foreign oceanographic 

 materials. 



RELATIONS WITH INDUSTRY 



Although most of our requests over the past year have come from scientists 

 engaged in research, it has become apparent that industry is looking to us for 

 support. It is also apparent that our relationship with industry can be reciprocal 

 inasmuch as they provide data to us for areas where data are sparse. Oil com- 

 panies, for example, provide us geological data from their offshore drilling sites. 

 We retain these data as proprietary information so long as the companies wish 

 them to remain so. 



With the present involvement of industry in all phases of oceanography, the 

 possibilities for mutual cooperation are extensive and important. 



DATA PROCESSING 



The activities of the center are not limited simply to data archiving and dis- 

 semination, but they include also computational support where this is required. 

 At the present timethe center possesses some basic computer equipment but the 

 bulk of the work is actually performed on an IBM 7070 and related equipment 

 housed at the Navy Hydrographic Office. 



This phase of the center's activities will be expanded as rapidly as is warranted 

 by the increased oceanographic research and operational effort. We are in the 

 process of building up our mathematical and programing staff and are currently 

 working on programs for the mechanization of biological and geological informa- 

 tion commensurate with those programs which currently exist for the computa- 

 tional support of physical and chemical oceanography. 



PUBLICATIONS 



The NODC publications at the present time consist of three series: 



1. General series, which includes publications of a general or descriptive nature 

 (such as atlases and data tabulations). 



2. The manual series, which includes observational and recording instruction 

 documents. 



