It All Adds Up: Contributing Climate Data to the Community.

Over the past 20 years, the creation of databases of digitized climate records have made invaluable resources available to study climate change. Beginning in 2000, NOAA’s Climate Database Modernization Program digitized climate related records resulting in the creation of 56 million climate-related images. The Climatological Database for the World's Oceans (CLIWOC) project digitized and transcribed ships’ logbooks that recorded weather data during their voyages. These entries provide researchers with invaluable data points to study climate change. Rare Books and Special Collections (RBSC) at the University of Notre Dame holds a number of unique logbooks containing weather observations that can enhance climate research. Without an immediate way to disseminate our data, we are not leveraging our sources to their fullest potential. The creation of a centralized repository to which institutions can submit their digitized images to create a larger climate-related data set will increase the discoverability of such data and provide an even greater impact. In the interim, RBSC will establish climate-related controlled vocabulary as access points and bolster individual collection and item descriptions. This will increase the discoverability of RBSC’s weather-related resources and provide important new data to aid climate research.