IUPAC

To extract, analyse and preserve less accessible information produced during the first decade of development of the IFCC-IUPAC coding system, and specify the needs for information management in the future.To produce a manual describing how the basic principles of the coding system are implemented in actual coding practise.

Work under C-NPU defining and coding properties in laboratory science has been going on since the mid-nineties. The database structure designed in the nineties was intended mainly to support the actual coding process (assembly of elements into coded properties), and the production of text files with specific fonts and formatting, intended for paper based publication.

Terminological information about the elements, their sources and their uses in coded properties has been stored, but frequently in an implicit manner, as part of other information elements, rather than explicitly in the database.

During almost a decade of coding work, principles and rules for the coding practise have crystallised, but have not been systematically filed. They may be extracted from stored material, like advice to users at laboratories, newsletters retiring 'malformed' codes etc., or they may be present as 'silent information' in the coding environment - i.e. in the minds of the people working with the system.

A review of the information present in the system and its environment is suggested, aiming to analyse and extract implicitly stored data and register 'silent knowledge'. The objective is to preserve the information, to render it accessible for future developers and users, and to specify the needs for structured information management in the future.

<project announcement published in Chem. Int. Mar-Apr 2007, p. 19>