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If this is your first visit to EOS-WEBSTER, welcome! You probably have some questions about how to begin, so we've designed this guide to hopefully answer your questions. Should you have additional questions please contact our User Support Coordinator, Denise. She'll be happy to walk you through EOS-WEBSTER and answer any questions you may have.

Returning customers may also find it useful to read through this guide. We have redesigned our Search and Retrieve Tool and this guide provides an overview of our new tool.

 

Please Register with Us

We ask that all of our users register with EOS-WEBSTER before placing an order. The registration form can typically be completed in about a minute. You'll be asked to create a user name and password combination for yourself, which is used when you order data. We will send you an e-mail notification when your order has been processed and is ready, so please make sure your e-mail address is correct.

If you prefer not to register, you are welcome to browse through the system and its data products as a guest.

User Registration Form

 

Step 1: Specify Your Search Criteria

The basic tool used to select and order data from EOS-WEBSTER is our Search and Retrieve Tool. Our Search and Retrieve Tool functions much like a library (except that you don't need to return the data). When you enter a library you have access to all of the library's holdings: books, journals, newspapers, databases, and other materials. You'll clearly need some method(s) for filtering these holdings down to a manageable number. You could search by author, title, subject, or even type of media, and then, if needed, search again. You can refine your search criteria as many times as you wish and perform a new search until you are satisfied with the results of your search. Once you've obtained a manageable list of holdings, you examine the holdings in greater detail to determine which (if any) you want to check-out.

At EOS-WEBSTER, we have over 95,000 data holdings for you to choose from. Our holdings include:

  • Agricultural Data
  • Atmospheric Deposition and Air Quality Data
  • Climate and Climatological Data
  • Demographic Data
  • Forest Ecosystem and Carbon Dynamics Model Data
  • Geographic Reference Data
  • Hydrologic Data and Water Demand
  • Land Use and Land Cover Products
  • Satellite Data Products (MODIS, Landsat, IKONOS)
  • Satellite Derived Indices and Biophysical Parameters
  • Soils Data

When you invoke the Search and Retrieve Tool you have access to all of our holdings. You'd have to sift through 4800 pages to view all of our holdings in greater detail, so clearly you'll want to filter these holdings first. We have 5 filters for you to choose from: Spatial (Geographic Region), Temporal, Keyword, Collection Name, and Freetext. You can use one filter, or a combination of filters, to narrow your search.

 

Let's use an example to highlight the use of the filters in narrowing a search:

Let's say you are interested in precipitation data for the United States. Using the Spatial Filter, you can either specify a bounding box around your region of interest, or use our Gazetteer and select USA States from a list of predetermined polygons:

 

 

If you chose the latter option, you can narrow your search further by selecting one or more locations within that category. Make your selection and then click the Select and View Location(s) button. (You don't have to choose a location, however. Picking only a category will return all the holdings from within that category).

The Spatial Filter should now look like this:

 

 

After you've made your selection(s), click the Update Holding Count button:

 

 

When you click the Update Holding Count button, note the Matching Holding Count box in the upper right hand corner:

 

 

The Matching Holding Count is the number of holdings in our database that match your search criteria. Use the filter tabs and continue to refine your search until you have a reasonable number of matching holdings. In this example, the holding count is 1434 (your holdings count may vary). That's still a lot of holdings to view, so let's use the Freetext Filter to re-select from our U.S. holdings just those holdings that are precipitation data.

Just type in the word "precipitation" in the text box and then select the Update Holding Count button:

 

Using both the Spatial and Freetext Filters, the Matching Holding Count will now be 14. At that point, you'll probably want to proceed to Step 2: View and Select Holdings, to see which of these holdings you want to order.

Before we proceed to Step 2 and examine these holdings in greater detail, there are a few more features of the filter selection process that are worth noting.

When a filter is in use, the filter tab becomes white:

 

 


As you use the Search and Retrieve Tool, note the text next to the Tip icon. Here you will find helpful information about using this filter:

 

 

You can see a listing of your current selections by clicking on the Your Search Criteria tab. You can clear any of the filters you have in use by selecting the Clear or Clear All buttons on this page:

 



Once you've specified your search criteria, use the View Matching Holdings tab to proceed to Step 2 and view and select your holdings to order.

 

Step 2: View and Select Holdings

Once you've specified your search criteria, you'll want to examine the holdings in greater detail to identify those that you want to order. All of the relevant holdings (those that match your search criteria) will be listed in a table format with a brief description of that holding and a link to the Data Guide that provides extensive documentation about that holding and all of the holdings in that data collection:

 

 

Select a holding by selecting an output format for that holding and clicking the check box next to that output format. If a holding is available in more than one output format, a pull-down list of all available formats will appear in the left-most column in the holdings table:

 

 

Additional information on our output formats is available from the Output Formats page.

If a holding has an associated browse image, a thumbnail image of that browse product will appear in the table. View the browse image by clicking on the thumbnail.

If your search criteria yields more than 20 holdings the holdings will be listed on multiple pages. To scroll through the list of holdings, use the Page Scroll at the top of the page:

After you've selected your holdings, use the button above the Page Scroll to proceed to Step 3 and choose a compression type.

 

Please Note:

If you have used the Temporal or Spatial filters, data will be subset to the selected time period or region. To prevent subsetting, clear those filters before selecting holdings to order.

 

 

Step 3: Select a Compression Type

All of our data holdings must be compressed prior to shipment. Compression utilities are available free of charge for Windows and MacIntosh platforms. We offer three standard compression types: zip, tar.gz and tar.Z. Select a compression type and then click the Place Order button.

 

Step 4: Place Your Order

Once you've placed your order, you'll receive an e-mail notification when your order is ready and can be obtained. The e-mail notification will contain a link to download your data files.

 

That's It!

That's all there is to ordering data from EOS-WEBSTER. We hope you'll find using our new Search and Retrieve Tool even easier than before. Please let us know what you think. We really value feedback from our users, and use your comments to refine and improve our system.

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