Whatever libraries become, they will offer leadership, service, and technological innovation in a collaborative setting - much like the World Data Center is doing today. The mission of the World Data Center system works to guarantee access to solar, geophysical and related environmental data. It serves the whole scientific community by assembling, scrutinizing, organizing and disseminating data and information. The International Council of Scientific Unions cooperates to share interdisciplinary data based in a number of host countries such as Japan, China, India, the U.S., Russia, and across Europe. Specifically, the data covers Astronomy, Geology, Geophysics, Glaciology and Geocryology, Meteorology, Oceanography, Renewable Resources and Environment, Seismology, Space Sciences, Airglow, Aurora, Cosmic Rays, Geomagnetism, Ionosphere, Nuclear Radiation, Solar Radio Emission, Space Science Satellites, Earth Tides, Glaciology, Recent Crustal Movements, Soils, Solar Activity, Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Sunspots, Marine Geology and Geophysics, Rotation of the Earth, Solid Earth Physics, Atmospheric Trace Gases, Human Interactions in the Environment, Paleoclimatology, Remotely Sensed Land Data, Rockets and Satellites, and Seismology.
Information consists of images, reports, news, and numeric data.
Much of the information is free, though not all of it is available electronically. Comments and suggestions are welcome.