Canadian water resources information: A network approach

Abstract

The Water Resources Document Reference System. Environment Canada (WATDOC), has been established to increase awareness of environmental information related to water resources. Participants are found throughout Canada at all levels of management and research. The designers of WATDOC reconcile the conflicts posed by a centralized data base operated by a decentralized community through the recognition of certain economic conditions and through the use of network techniques. Every effort is made to obtain the cooperation of users and suppliers of information, to provide access to data bases, to incorporate advances in technology, and to search for system improvement. “Invisible colleges” are established through seminars and personal contact and correspondence. The information in the data base is identified by indexing and classification methods combined, through the use of a UDC thesaurus/concordance. All data bases within the network may be accessed directly by on-line or batch methods, by telephone-query or specialist-terminal interaction, or by mail. Relevant research is supported. Research related to this paper has resulted in the development of a UDC thesaurus/concordance and in a set of programs to support an interactive on-line classification-linked thesaurus for indexing, classification, search and retrieval. Implementation, operation, and development of WATDOC are discussed in detail.