----------------------------Original message----------------------------
The following Press Release was issued on December 18, 1996.
Please post this message to all news groups, e-mail lists and
other discussion forums that have an interest in environmental
information access or network information search.
 
CONTACT:  Patricia Viets                 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
          NOAA/NESDIS                    12/18/96
          (301) 457-5005
          Eliot Christian
          United States Geological Survey
          703-648-7245
 
 
            WORLD'S EXPERTS PLAN GLOBAL LOCATOR SERVICE
                  FOR ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION
 
     Experts from around the world have agreed on a standard for
locating information, whether held in libraries, data centers, or
published on the Internet. This lays the foundation for a virtual
library of environmental data and information that will be easily
accessible on global networks.
 
     "An information locator service is useful wherever people
communicate, but there is a special urgency to the worldwide
sharing of environmental information," said U.S. Vice President
Al Gore. "Every year, governments and others spend billions of
dollars collecting and processing environmental data and related
technical information.
 
     "We now hold around the world an incredible wealth of
information about the Earth and its inhabitants," the Vice
President said.  "That information could have a profound impact
on our ability to protect our environment, manage natural
resources, prevent and respond to disasters, and ensure
sustainable development. Unfortunately, many potential users
either do not know that it exists or do not know how to access
it.  This initiative will make use of base standards that are so
essential for people to find the environmental data and
information they need."
 
     The agreement was reached among representatives to the
Global Information Society initiative, which was convened at
the suggestion of Vice President Gore and organized by the G7
(Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, United
States, and the European Commission). The leaders of the
Environment and Natural Resources Management project, which
includes several other nations and organizations, are Larry
Enomoto of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) and Eliot Christian of the United States Geological
Survey (USGS).
 
     "The service standard is designed to make information easy
to find," said Christian. "It is a natural complement to the
World Wide Web that is such a wonderful tool for presentation.
When we look for a particular piece of information, we often need
to search many separate sources. We may not be satisfied with
just scanning World Wide Web pages, just accepting the
suggestions of one publisher, or just being limited to
information published in English.
 
     "Libraries centuries ago confronted the same problem. They
held an amazing diversity of content but had to work out common
agreements on how to catalog it," Christian said.  "Today,
librarians and citizens everywhere rely on the common formats
used in library catalogs. The information locator service builds
on these standards as applied to electronic networks, and is
positioned to evolve along with rapid advances in information
discovery and natural language processing."
 
     The standard adopted for this service is ISO 10163, known in
the United States as ANSI Z39.50.  This standard specifies how
electronic network searches should be expressed and how results
are returned. It is adaptable to all languages and supports
full-text search of documents as well as very large and complex
bibliographic collections.  The standard does not require a
central authority or master index.  Just as catalogs provide a
common way to search many separate libraries, anyone can create
information locators independently.
 
     By applying a standard that has been widely used for many
years, this initiative takes advantage of existing networks and
software to access a vast array of valuable resources, including
hundreds of libraries, museums, and archives worldwide--some
containing as many as 35 million locator records. It also fits in
with many other international and national programs focused on
improved access to information, including the Government
Information Locator Service being implemented in the United
States and elsewhere.
 
     A new server developed by the European Commission for this
project, available on the World Wide Web at http://enrm.ceo.org,
provides an example of using this standard internationally.
Further information on the information locator service can be
found at http://www.g7.fed.us/gils.html
 
 
                               ###
 
Eliot Christian, US Geological Survey, 802 National Center, Reston VA 20192
[log in to unmask]  Office 703-648-7245  FAX 703-648-7069  Home 703-476-6134