IBSS has a huge stock of various oceanographic data collected in all regions of the World Ocean for the last 135 years. These datasets are exceptionally valuable as, in addition to biological data on the species level, they include hydrophisical, hydrochemical, and other environmental variables including rather unique parameters like in situ bioluminescence.

However, these data are not mostly digitized and digitized data dispersed between different data sets and data bases that often make them not accessible to scientists. This IBSS Metadata and Data Access Portal is an attempt to put all available at IBSS metadata and data to a digital form and make them available as to the IBSS scientists as to the entire scientific community.

As the first step, all IBSS cruises information collected from cruise reports are being digitized and put in the centralized metadatabase using internationally recognized formats and vocabularies (e.g., Cruse Summary Report, etc). Some already digitized data are also loaded into the database to give the user an impression on how the data themselves would be accessible through the Portal.

All metadata included in the database are available free through this Portal. Access to data depends on the dataset. In some cases data will be available free for downloading, but in some cases it will be necessary to request permission from the data originator.

The Portal itself and the software is under development and can contain some bugs. We would be grateful to receive from you any comments and remarks on the system functioning and provided information.