Assessing and Increasing the Utility of Historical Weather Data

Assessing the value of historical data materials in analog formats is a difficult challenge. This project will discuss efforts within the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Library to assess the potential value and utility of analog data materials. The NCAR Library contains over 250 data titles in its collection, mostly consisting of print and microfiche materials published and distributed by various national and regional weather bureaus. Each title may contain many individual volumes, covering different time ranges. This presentation focuses on the assessment framework we developed to identify which items may be of greater interest to the weather and climate research community. We will also discuss our process for upgrading the catalog record descriptions for a subset of items in this collection, and our efforts to transform the library catalog record metadata to meet the requirements of the ISO 19115-1:2014 metadata standard