A major function at NSO is to provide its solar data to a large user community, which includes both professional scientists and the general public. To facilitate this process, and to improve data access, the initial implementation of the NSO Digital Library is now complete and directly accessible through the internet at http://www.nso.noao.edu/diglib.
The NSO Digital Library currently consists of three 100-disk CD-ROM jukeboxes mounted on the main NSO data server in Tucson; additional magnetic disk storage at both NSO/Kitt Peak and NSO/Sac Peak; a Web forms user interface for searching the available data; an anonymous FTP data delivery system, and two high-resolution flatbed scanners to ingest photographic data. As of this writing, the library contents include all of the Kitt Peak Vacuum Telescope synoptic data from 1974 to the present; the Sacramento Peak Ca K and H spectroheliograms for May 1996 through August 1997; the Sacramento Peak coronal scans from 1993 to the present; the Kitt Peak Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS) transformed spectra from 1976 to the present; and the Kitt Peak FTS solar spectral atlases. Future additional contents will include the FTS raw interferograms, solar-stellar data, High-l helio-seismometer Ca K images, Near Infrared Magnetograph (NIM) data, SOLIS data, and historical data from the US Naval Observatory and Mt. Wilson. The next major revision to the library interface will incorporate quick-look graphics and queries based on quantities computed directly from the data.
The development of the Digital Library has been generously supported by the NSF Division of Atmospheric Sciences National Space Weather Program and by the NASA Upper Atmosphere Research Program. A number of NSO staff members have materially contributed to this effort, including Detrick Branston, Wendy Erdwurm, Jack Harvey, Tim Henry, Amanda Jaksha, Mary McGraw, Robert McGraw, Larry November, Doug Rabin, Jan Schwitters, Anna Scott, Nelsey Toner, and Jeremy Wagner.
Frank Hill