The NSO Digital Library (NDL) is close to becoming available for general use and testing by the solar scientific community. The NDL consists of three 100-disk CD-ROM juke boxes mounted on the main NSO data server in Tucson; a Web forms user interface for searching the available data; and a data delivery system. Currently the library contains the Kitt Peak Vacuum Telescope synoptic data for the periods 1974-1987 and 1992-1995; the Sacramento Peak Ca K and H spectroheliograms for May 1996 through August 1997; the Kitt Peak Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS) transformed spectra from 1976 through 1996; and the Kitt Peak FTS solar spectral atlases. The CDs containing these data sets are already directly accessible via anonymous FTP through the NSO/KP Web page at http://www.nso.noao.edu/nsokp/nsokp.html.
The user interface and search tool for the KPVT synoptic data sets will be released for general use and testing within the next month. The interfaces for the NSO/SP spectroheliograms and FTS data will follow shortly thereafter. Future plans include completion of the migration of the current data sets, and addition of the FTS raw interferograms. Other candidate data sets for inclusion are the NSO/SP coronal scans, the NSO/SP K-line index, the NSO/KP high-l helioseismometer Ca K images, the Mt. Wilson white-light images, and the NRL full-disk white-light images. The SOLIS data sets will also eventually be incorporated.
This project is being carried out using funds from the NSF Space Weather program. A number of NSO staff members have materially contributed to this effort, including Detrick Branston, Wendy Erdwurm, Jack Harvey, Amanda Jaksha, Mary McGraw, Robert McGraw, Larry November, Jan Schwitters, Anna Scott, Nelsey Toner, and Jeremy Wagner.
Frank Hill