This work has been harmonized with the data element description and registration standards being developed by ISO SC 32 and known as ISO 11179. Several federal agencies are active in developing and promoting ISO 11179 as a way to improve the reuse of data elements in their systems. Their standard is an abstract specification. It also only requires a small subset of the possible attributes, while allowing users to create and document their own additional attributes. The first two documents should be available for formal review by early summer 2000.
Highlights are as follows.
The National Space Science Data Center is migrating files from VMS-based optical platters to DLTs and raid disks. The AIPs are stored on DLTs and the attribute objects and canonical files are then extracted and stored on the raid disk for rapid access. Entry of one of the unique identifiers originally assigned by some Control Authority office resulted in a query being sent to that office and the return of the data description. Efforts to combine this with JAVA-based classes triggered by the unique identifiers is also being investigated. This international conference on metadata registries was held in Santa Fe, California, during January 2000.