The Activities at World Data Center for Geomagnetism Mumbai, India

The World Data Centre for Geomagnetism, Mumbai is functioning as a division of Indian Institute of Geomagnetism, Navi Mumbai since its full fledges activities commenced in 1991 in coordination with International Council of Scientific Union (ICSU) Panel on World Data Centres. The responsibility of the compilation of final hourly absolute values of nine of the Indian magnetic observatories and deposition to the World Data Centres is undertaken at the centre. We have utilized the full advantage of technology advancement in upgrading the data preservation and conservation policy at various levels. In the recent years the centre has prioritized its activities related to digital preservation to ensure digital archiving of magnetic data from the traditional media and also the digital conservation of very old hand written/printed data volumes and magnetograms. In view of the scientific importance of data from Colaba-Alibag magnetic observatory, old magnetograms and data volumes are converted to digital images for long term preservation. In the digital preservation process, the creation of metadata is become an important component to store information related to old and current scientific records for future use. The centre is also hosting database driven website to make datasets available online to global scientific community.