Since late 2002, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Office of Ocean Exploration and Research (OER) has been collaborating with the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) and its three divisions, the NOAA Central Library (NCL), the Marine Data Stewardship Division (MDSD), and the National Coastal Data Development Center (NCDDC) to address the requirements for archiving, preserving, managing, and providing online access to digital videos and still images from OER oceanographic expeditions. The Video Data Management System (VDMS), which was developed to facilitate managing online information and access to video and images obtained during NOAA-sponsored oceanographic expeditions, now enables access to hundreds of digital video clips, highlight movies, still images and related documents and products from OER expeditions. Using discovery tools available via NOAALINC, the NCL online catalog (http://www.lib.noaa.gov/), NOAA scientists and other researchers can discover and download online video and still images to deep sea coral ecosystems areas. Upon special arrangement, the NCL can provide equipment and an appropriate environment for users to view, copy and/or download requested off-line scientific video data or view original expedition tapes from the NOAA Library Archives. Additional online information includes related cruise reports, educational lesson plans, original video and image annotation documents, digital maps and Web sites, and links to other oceanographic observation data.
