Digital Archive Issues From the Perspective of an Earth Science Data Producer

Earth science data have several unique characteristics that play a role in that data''s archival: (1) Earth science data are always obtained with an underlying structure of spatial and temporal sampling. (2) Earth Science data have physical meaning, including ranges of acceptable values and physical consistency constraints. (3) Earth science data appear as the results of production methods that often involve complex algorithms and tangled webs of production and validation. Each of these characteristics influences the way data producers generate their data and the way users access and retrieve it. Of course, the perspective of the data producers is far from identical with the perspective of the many user communities. As we explore these perspectives and their implications in this paper, we will be reminded that digital archives have a long-term view of their data, but that they also need to be in intimate contact with the living communities of producers and users for that data.