Recent experience of the application of a commercial data base management system (ADABAS) to a scientific data bank (ECDIN)

The ECDIN (Environmental Chemicals Data and Information Network) project started in 1973. During the pilot phase of operation the feasibility of the system was demonstrated using a data base of 4000 compounds and the SIMAS information retrieval system. It was quickly realised that for ECDIN data management was as important as information retrieval and in November 1977, after a study of available software, the ADABAS data base management system was installed at JRC Ispra for ECDIN and other JRC data banks. A design exercise for the ECDIN ADABAS data base has been completed and parts of the existing ECDIN data base have been converted to the new system. The problems encountered and the solutions adopted are discussed. The user interface to ECDIN is still under development. When fully operational ECDIN will be available through EURONET to both casual and specialist users and, in consequence, at least two levels of user interface will be required: (a) a user friendly conversational language designed for the casual user and capable of dealing with the more common types of question, (b) a sophisticated query language capable of answering the more difficult questions, producing “one-off” reports and probably requiring both a specialist knowledge of the data base and a programmer oriented background. The first tentative steps in this direction are described.