The National Weather Service, the Air Force, and the Navy all produce various types of climatic studies and climatic summaries. Many of these products are routinely distributed to your command as they are produced. Some products must be specifically ordered. The best guide to find what types of climatic information are available for a specific location or for an area is the publication drawback to this publication is that new areas and revised studies are being done every year but the Guide has not been revised for several years now. NOCD Asheville publishes an annual report listing all of the climatic studies that have been published by the Navy and are currently available for issue on different types of mediapaper, microfiche, microfilm, floppy diskette, or Compact Disk (Read Only Memory). This listing, issued as NOCD ASHEVILLENOTE 3146, for the Commander, Naval Oceanography Command) Airfield Summaries (or they cover.

The Air Force, which also publishes many climatic studies each year, issues a catalog that lists the locations covered by Air Weather Service climatic studies or summaries and that lists the type(s) of studies available. This is the Catalog of Air Weather Service Technical Documents, AWS/TC-89/001. This catalog not only is an excellent index for AWS climatic summaries and studies, but it also lists the Navys climatic studies and summaries, as well as many other technical publications on meteorology-related topics. This catalog is updated annually, but has distribution and use limited to For Official (government) Use Only. Copies of the publication maybe requested (by Naval activities) through the Commander, Naval Oceanography Command.

So far we have discussed some sources that list publications that may be found in your office. Now we will discuss how to take care of the publications that you have.

The Naval Oceanography Command Centers and Facilities may have rooms that are designated as a library, but for most Detachments and ships, this is a luxury that is not permitted, because of space limitations. Undoubtedly, you have some bookcase space available, whether aboard ship, in a detachment, or at a center or facility. If your command has an established system for filing and retrieving publications, and the system generally works, then the best thing you can do is to learn that system and work with it.

If no workable system has been established, the simplest system for office-size book collections is the alphabetical filing system. File the publica-tions on shelves in alphabetical order by the title. Index cards (or a computer listing) should be made up for each book, listing the title, publication number, and subject(s) covered. These cards should be held in a filing box, alphabetically by title. If time and resources permit, an additional set of cards should be made and filed by subject in a separate box or separate section of the card file box (or in a separate file in your computer). For slightly larger collections of publications, you may wish to divide the bookcase shelves into sections for each series of publications, such as NAVAIR publications (all publications with NAVAIR numbers), Air Weather Service Publica-tions, National Weather Service Publications, Naval Oceanographic Office publications, Naval Environmental prediction Research Facility publications, and so forth. Publications within each group may be arranged alphabetically. The same type of index card title and subject lists may be maintained, but each card should also include a listing of the bookcase section in which the publication is located.

Only the larger, full-room-size libraries may justify the extra work required to cross-reference title, subject, and author indexes, and mark bindings with the standard Dewey Decimal Library System code. If this system is selected, consult your local base library for further information.

Your title index and subject index are the key to your library. Keep the index current. Let the other people you work with know how the publications are arranged and how the index is maintained. If the index is maintained on the office computer, let them know how to access the information, or be available to access the information for them.

Some sort of check-out log or system must be used to keep track of publications that are removed from the area. The most useful reference publications, if not controlled properly, tend to "disappear" from libraries, These publications may sometimes be located on someones desk; but without a check-out system, larger commands must reorder publications frequently.

As for the publications themselves, all books should be kept in a dry, low-humidity environ-ment. High-humidity and moisture promote mold growth, which destroys the paper. Books should not be stored exposed to strong or direct sunlight. Sunlight yellows the edges of the pages and accelerates paper decomposition. It also makes the binding become brittle.

Aboard ship, it is common practice to box up and store publications that are not expected to be especially useful during an upcoming cruise, in an out-of-the-way location. The index cards or computer index of books stored in this manner should be annotated with the storage location.

Learning Objective: Identify the source manual for information about various meteorological and oceanographic charts.

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