Highlights for May 28, 1999
USGS Center for Biological Informatics

I. Key Department News: No report.

II. Agency Works on Presidential Initiatives:

• Draft Biological Profile Moved Forward; Working Group Commended. USGS Center for Biological Informatics scientists Maury Nyquist (Chair, FGDC Biological Working Group) and Susan Stitt, along with Anne Frondorf of the Office of Biological Informatics and Outreach, successfully presented to the FGDC Standards Working Group the case for the Draft Biological Data Profile of the Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (http://biology.usgs.gov/fgdc.bio/index.html) to be moved forward as an official FGDC metadata profile. Earlier difficulties concerning requirements to include bounding coordinates in the metadata even when biological data are not explicitly geospatial in nature--such as laboratory and other studies for which locational metadata are irrelevant or potentially misleading--have been worked out. The biological community can now use one standard to document biological data and information whether they are explicitly geospatial or not. The Standards Working Group commended the Biological Data Working Group for their efforts in developing the biological metadata profile and for giving the FGDC an excellent real-world example for their continuing deliberations with the International Standards Organization in developing an international metadata standard and associated profiles. (Maury Nyquist, Denver, 303-202-4217)
  
  
• BRD-CERES Thesaurus in Next-Generation NBII. On May 27, staff from the USGS Center for Biological Informatics and representatives of the California Environmental Resources Evaluation System (CERES) will discuss next steps and an implementation approach for including the CERES Thesaurus within the National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII). The CERES Thesaurus <http://ceres.ca.gov> has been jointly developed by BRD and the California Resources Agency to facilitate distributed access to a variety of existing thesaurus applications. The project has evolved to the point that it is now ready for implementation and integration into the next-generation NBII. (Mike Frame, Denver, 303-202-4260)
  
  

III. Notable Congressional Activity: No report.

IV. Press/Media Inquiries: No report.

V. FOIA Requests: No report.