Objective 1: Provide data management services needed to capture, preserve, and provide access to data as well as to enable development of procedures for data presentation, quality control and data workflow.

Objective 2: Design, develop, and enact an information management strategy that supports evolution of 1) an information architecture providing for data organization and information system development as well as 2) an informatics environment for considering data practices, integration, and workflows that is informed by a blend of experience- based learning, research and synergistic disciplines such as science studies and communication.

Objective 3: Determine and carry out essential elements of data stewardship that enable the immediate local use of data and applications as well as facilitating long-term re-use of data and design elements through traditional and sociotechnical information management methods . Ongoing comparative analysis opens up our understanding of the multiple dimensions of data practices and the digital record.

The three figures to the right (click to enlarge) provide a history of the information system development. After envisioning a data system in 2001, a relational database approach was initiated and an information system called DataZoo became the center of a design effort. The original data system was limited to data capture and access using a hierarchical file system, but today DataZoo supports online data query and web services. Dictionaries and term sets play a key role in the schema. System features include a personnel directory, bibliography, media gallery, and dataset catalog. Since 2007, site metadata takes into account local and community standards by using and extending the Ecological Metadata Language specification. By 2010, the information environment was expanded to handle not only highly structured data files via DataZoo but also to handle very complex data files and very large collections of data files as new components.

Ocean Informatics provides a conceptual framework for Palmer LTER information management. Initiated in 2003, this framework focuses on creating a sustainable information management environment and continuing design. Together with science studies partners, we are working to open up discursive practices and perspectives on informatics issues and collaborative work. As part of a long-term strategy, we are addressing sustainability via Ocean Informatics Initiative, an organizationally recognized Information Management facility working closely with the IOD/SIO Computational Infrastructure Services.