The most valuable product of field stations is the information generated on site. Modern data management and communications technology allows the accumulated knowledge garnered from years of research at a particular site to be preserved and made easily accessible to scientists, students, policy-makers, and the public on site or anywhere else. Information obtained at great cost (e.g., research datasets, site descriptions and history, and programmatic experience) should be available for more complete use. Yet this vision is not easily realized. A principal obstacle to modernizing data management at field stations has been the absence of a consensus on metadata standards, retrieval methodology, and appropriate operational procedures. Recent work led by the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS) has generated a common approach to these issues for Neotropical field stations. OTS will implement a model program to develop on-line accessibility to the data resources of its three biological stations in Costa Rica--Las Cruces, and Palo Verde. This requires moving to minimum functional standards for power supply, communication links, servers, local area networks, work station conformation, back-up units, and relevant software, as well as for training, operational procedures, and rescue of key datasets. The new data documentation standards, on-line search software, and operational protocols are currently being tested at La Selva. OTS will expand implementation to the rest of La Selva as well as to Palo Verde and Las Cruces, eventually impacting over 300 research projects, 120 field courses, and 5,000 scientists and students who use the stations each year, not to mention those who access the system from outside. This will entail not only training programs aimed at staff and users alike, but also efforts to capture information being produced currently and older databases identified as particularly valuable. These sites will be used to train data managers from oth er tropical field stations so as to foster expansion of the ILTER network and enhance interaction with its collaborators in several countries.
