About Marlin

Marlin is the central, searchable repository for dataset descriptions (metadata) relating to data held by Australia's CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere group. Marlin currently contains descriptions of several thousand datasets held by this CSIRO Business Unit, many of which are available online via hyperlinks to data files, OGC web services, or our "Data Trawler" application.

The following links are supplied for Marlin users:

• Catalog: provides both simple free text search and keyword-based filtering (default), plus advanced options to search for metadata
• Map: shows bounding boxes for all datasets in the present search results; also can add individual custom spatial extents (from web map services) for selected datasets as available, using the green "add to map" buttons
• About: contains some background information about the present version of Marlin
• Home: takes you back to this page.
• CSIRO and other registered users should Sign In via the link above the CSIRO and Marlin logo to view internal records and/or to create and edit metadata (for CSIRO users, your nexus ID and password should be used).

This is a recent release of the Marlin software based on the open source GeoNetwork product, with enhanced metadata elements and functionality compared with the previous MarLIN system which was in use 1998-2014. Significant advances include:

• New, internationally-compliant metadata format based on ISO 19115 (and the Australian Marine Community Profile of the same)
• Facility to link to OGC web services e.g. web map services (WMS) which can be used to plot data on the Marlin map viewer, and can be used by external web portals
• New user and group management for metadata authoring, including login with standard (nexus) credentials
• Shared application maintenance and development with the international GeoNetwork community and other Australian users
• Improved metadata sharing between multiple repositories via harvesting
• Enhanced thesaurus support e.g. from externally maintained vocabularies and services
• Extensive use of stylesheets, for the flexible display of information
• Updated look and feel for metadata search and edit pages

For more information about the GeoNetwork Open Source product on which this version of Marlin is built, see the GeoNetwork project home page. To contact the Marlin development team to request new features or report problems, please use the email CMARMarLINSupport@csiro.au.