Projections for NASA scientific and technical information (STI) in the 1990s are outlined. NASA STI for the 1990s will maintain a quality bibliographic and full-text database, emphasizing electronic input and products supplemented by networked access to a wide variety of sources, particularly numeric databases

Cotter, Gladys A.

English

NASA Technical Reports Server

NASA Scientific and Technical
Information for the 1990s
GLADYS A. COTTER*
In this article, we outline our projections for NASA scientific and technical informa-
tion (STI) in the 1990s. NASA STI for the 1990s will maintain a quality bibliographic
and full-text database, emphasizing electronic input and products supplemented by net-
worked access to a wide variety of sources, particularly numeric databases.
STI for the 1990s will build on the accomplishments of the 1980s. Although budgetary
realities are a constraint, there is much we can accomplish by applying new technology
creatively. The changes now in process will provide a springboard for further change.
CHANGING REQUIREMENTS FOR MANAGING NASA STI
NASA is by concept and by practice an advanced-technology agency. The thrust of the
1990s will be toward a more comprehensive, systematic use of computer and communica-
tions technology for all phases of NASA STI.
Computers for STI use in the 1960s and 1970s and continuing into the 1980s were tools
to assist and, where possible, replace manual operations. STI managers hoped that com-
puterization would prove cost-effective; this was not always so. However, many new
capabilities were realized. NASA will strive in the 1990s to use technology to meet new
demands of users in a more cost-effective manner. The reconditioned Scientific and Technical
Information Modular System (STIMS) and reconditioned RECON command and access
structure are expected to be completely installed and operational at the NASA STI Facility
by June 1990. This will position NASA to take advantage of state-of-the-art technology
for several years into the 1990s, to handle the expected volume of electronic input and out-
put, and to network effectively.
CURRENT AND FUTURE TECHNOLOGY
As the 1980s closed, neither scientist, engineer, nor STI professional had to be convinced
*Direct all correspondence to: Gladys A. Cotter, NASA Office of Management, Code NT'E, Washington, DC
20546-0001.
Government Information Quarterly, Volume 7, Number 2, pages 169-173.
ISSN: 0740-624X.
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170 GOVERNMENTINFORMATIONQUARTERLYVol. 7/No. 211990
that menu-driven systems, common command languages, gateways, and networking were
hard realities. We all use them; available hardware and software determine our methods
of working. Anticipated technology influences the systems we install: a well-designed system
is developed and implemented to interface with and evolve into the next generation system.
Available technology controls STI use to a degree most of us never anticipated, and to an
extent as yet undetermined. Most of us still think and act as though we were still in a non-
computerized environment, and don't know well enough yet what we can reasonably expect
from our personal computer or workstation, our local area network (LAN), our mainframe,
our search and retrieval software, or our database management system. Workstation
technology as pioneered for the Space Station may become the prototype for what the effi-
cient workplace will become: more comfortable, less stressful, encouraging relaxed but
alert attentiveness. STI access will be an integral part of this workstation development.
Artificial intelligence (AI), expert systems, and knowledge-based systems will be used
in the development of future STI systems and to focus design and engineering of new and
modified STI subsystems. These technologies are workable for narrowly defined activities.
They arelargelysimulationroutines,buttheyfrequentlytrytosimulatethewrong thing:
manual performanceofan activityortoobroad-basedan application.As we become more
comfortableinour computerizedenvironment,we willbe betterabletodevelopand use
systemsthatwillincreasethe efficiencyof STI input,processing,search,and retrieval.
Electronic Output
To a large extent, new NASA STI technology has been determined and defined in the
1980s and the groundwork laid for implementation and expansion in the 1990s. Quality
of the NASA STI database should be improved in both content and timeliness to receive
electronic input from those whose input is now on paper. STI professionals will be work-
ing with the NASA installations to receive electronic input, first of the bibliographic entry
of their publications, then the full text. While the NASA installations have indicated interest
in this NASA-wide system, they will have to agree on common elements and convert to
compatible hardware, software, and formats. The next step will be to obtain electronic input
from NASA contractors.NASA installations and contractorsalready process theirdocuments
electronically; given standard formats and instructions, they will be able to transmit their
documents electronically, thus moving toward a tightly-knit agency-wide STI activity.
CHANGING USER NEEDS FOR STI
SEARCH AND RETRIEVAL
As part of their daily research and development (R&D) activities, scientists and engineers
at NASA installations and with NASA contractors acquire and use STI from NASNs
database. Often the act of acquisition is performed by an information specialist rather than
by the scientist or engineer; sometimes it is a joint effort of both. Use of the information
specialist for information retrieval is frequently a chargeback service.
NASA STI professionals are themselves major users of NASA STI. They use it in order
to keep up with the activities of the scientists and engineers. The traditional services they
provide to the scientists and engineers are necessary but not sufficient; NASA scientists
and engineers need to have access to more than one information retrieval system. To assist
NASA STI for the 1990s 171
these researchers in developing a comprehensive perspective, the STI professional must
be familiar with and able to use many other information retrieval systems: federal and com-
mercial, bibliographical, full-text, or numerical. The amount and type of assistance need-
ed varies from client to client and occasion to occasion.
NETWORKING
The NASA STI professionals must be at home with different computer hardware and soft-
ware and with a variety of networks. Nearly every researcher in the NASA community
has his or her own personal computer or workstation and is on at least one LAN. Pointers
to data provided by traditional STI tools are becoming less and less useful and effective
for the NASA scientist or engineer. Documents retrieved can be as often frustrating as
useful. Searches resulting in a long printout of NASA/RECON entries, or a series of entries
viewed on the screen, may be baffling to the untrained user. Documents or substantial
abstracts may supply facts, but the researcher's immediate need is for data that can be
manipulated on the computer. Receiving a tape in the mail may be helpful, but more helpful
is the ability to target and access the necessary data within minutes via a network the resear-
cher hadn't known existed, using protocols that were previously unfamiliar.
NASA STI networking will make use of the approach already developed for scientific
networks within NASA to link researchers to networks outside NASA. This methodology
investigates, defines, and implements a unified approach to developing and interconnect-
ing data systems so that users may rapidly obtain information about data of interest to them,
and to enable efficient distribution of up-to-date information about data throughout the
systems. In an effort coordinated by the STI Division, representatives from participating
data systems will work together to:
• determine, document, and implement as fully as possible a set of guidelines or recom-
mendations on the concepts and capabilities of an interoperable data system;
• determine, together with scientist and engineer users, requirements for interoperability;
• develop and implement interconnections so that a user may search for data sets or
data systems of interest, starting with a directory, and then transfer through computer
networks to the places where further information is available, and then to the data
for access and manipulation;
• develop a common directory interchange format for sharing information among the
data systems for input and update of directory-level information; and
• assist a user in searches among the data systems by automated transfer of information
describing the user's requests.
An initial step to networking is linking NASA/RECON with the National Space Science
Data Center (NSSDC) and the Space Physics Analysis Network (SPAN) to allow mutual
access by users. Hardware and software interface at the NASA STI Facility will permit
direct connection to the LAN at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Thus users
of NASA/RECON who find references to a particular database may "hotkey" to the NSSDC
Master Directory and be led via the network to access that database. Similarly, a NSSDC
user of a database on the SPAN network may switch to NASA/RECON and search for
references to documents about that database.
172 GOVERNMENTINFORMATIONQUARTERLYVol. 7/No. 2/1990
Initial STI networking efforts will emphasize coordination of existing networks and clear-
inghouses, either within the aerospace community or related to it. The NASA Office of
Space Flight (the Space Shuttle program) and the Office of Space Station operate informa-
tion systems that can be accessed via links similar to the NASA/RECON-NSSDC link.
Systems for accessing materials data and wind tunnel data are candidates for networking.
A clearinghouse for applied and engineering data to complement NSSDC's activities for
space science will be explored. Although only 2 percent of NSSDC's data are available
online, it is a useful 2 percent.
INTERAGENCY AND INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
Networking provides the basis for input to the NASA STI Facility from the NASA installa-
tions and also for information processing links with other federal agency large-scale STI
operations such as the National Technical Information Service (NTIS), Defense Technical
Information Center (DTIC), and the Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical
Information (DOE/OSTI). These are represented in the interagency group of the depart-
ments of Commerce, Energy, NASA, and Defense Information (CENDI). The NASA STI
Facility currently processes computer tape input from these agencies using its computer-
aided indexing capability; networked input will allow direct transrnission of this informa-
tion, or distributed access.
The current open political climate presents a challenge to develop interoperability be-
tween U.S. government STI and the STI of the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe. NASA has
a keen interest in this because of the active Soviet space program and existing U.S.S.R.-
U.S. cooperation. The U.S.S.R.'s Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (VINITI)
has indicated a willingness to share its burden of providing several hundred thousand abstracts
a year of the world's scientific and technical literature. VINITI issues several dozen series
of bibliographic journals. Most of these are in Russian, although some are abstracted in
English. Translation is a mutual problem. VINITI's operations are already computerized,
offering the possibility of networked access for searching and for inputting directly into
the NASA STI database. Recent availability of desktop Russian-to-English translation soft-
ware will assist in converting Russian language abstracts to English. NASA's computer-
aided indexing capability can be adapted to translate the universal decimal code used by
VINITI to NASA thesaurus terms.
A review of existing NASA STI commitments to the STI programs of the European Space
Agency (ESA), the Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Development (AGARD),
and NATO, and the role each of these organizations might play in light of the new open-
ness of the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe, will be undertaken in the 1990s.
ENTREPRENEURIAL STI AT NASA
NASNs STI services must be tailored to meet the needs of the NASA R&D activities. Instead
of stating "these are the services we offer," we must ask the question "What are the ser-
vices you need?" We must confirm that existing programs are needed and find innovative
ways to implement new services. NASA STI managers and professionals have to play an
aggressive role in working with the researchers to identify what services and information
they need, and they must be flexible to implement unique services required by and paid
NASA STI for the 1990s 173
for by subsets of the R&D community. A big part of the cost of STI projects (as for any
technical project) goes for developing software to support new approaches and to create
network communications that work.
To provide STI services to researchers, NASA STI professionals must identify the services
needed, determine development cost and time, and provide the appropriate program manager
with the opportunity to fund the project so that the STI services they need can be developed
in a timeframe that coincides with their programmatic requirements. Services developed
in this manner will o_iously have high usage because they will be developed to meet specific
program-oriented goals. Integrating STI services into programmatic environments will en-
sure that STI services are an essential component of NASA R&D and that NASA receives
the full benefit of being able to quickly identify relevant STI (past and present) and build
that knowledge into current and planned R&D activities.
Analysis, planning, and management for such development projects must be formal,
rigorous, and businesslike. Milestones must be projected for implementation and costs.
Emphasis is on the bottom line: exactly what does the customer need and what is the most
cost-effective strategy for meeting that need?
Program-oriented STI projects will bring NASA STI professionals in closer collabora-
tion with NASA's R&D program managers because they will participate in the R&D pro-
cess. The STI professional will become a partner in the program by devising information
strategies tailored to assist programmatic success.
STI managers and professionals will continually improve their insight into the evolving
needs, desires, and special characteristics of aerospace science and engineering. At the
same time, the NASA scientists and engineers will become more and more attuned to what
the NASA STI program can do for them. This partnership provides a foundation for
accelerating the NASA R&D objectives.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cotter, Giadys A. The Scientific and Technical Information Network (STINET) : Foundation for Evolution. Report
AD-AI89 750. Alexandria, Va.: Defense Technical Information Center, September 1987.
Research and Technology Objectives and Plans: Summary. NASA TM-101203. Washington, D.C.: NASA Scien-
tific and Technical Information Division, 1989.
Theiman, James R. Catalog lnteroperability. W89-704T3. Greenbelt, Md.: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center,
1989.
Thomas, Valerie L. Space Physics Analysis Network (SPAN). W89-70475. GreenbeR, Md.: NASA Goddard Space
Flight Center, 1989.



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