COMMISSION 5: DOCUMENTATION AND ASTRONOMICAL DATA PRESIDENT: B. Hauck VICE-PRESIDENT: O. Dluzhnevskaya ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: H.A. Abt, M.S. Bessel, M. Creze, A.G. Hearn, H. Jenkner, Li Qi-Bin, A. Piskunov, E. Raimond, G.R. Riegler, W.H. Warren, D.C. Wells, R. Wielen, G.A. Wilkins SECRETARY: F. Genova 1: Business meeting (August 22, 1997, Chairperson B. Hauck) 1.1 REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT FOR 1994-1997: [...] The last Business Meeting of Commission 5 in The Hague adopted a new structure for the Working Groups and Task Groups. The main argument for proposing this new structure was the very high number of Working Groups. Furthermore, it was necessary to adapt the scope of the WG to the evolution of the field covered by the Commission, and thus the Working Group on Information handling was created. Since the last General Assembly, Commission 5 has three WGs covering broad fields of interest and several TGs which cover narrower, or more technical fields. This new structure operated well, but the FITS TG insists that they would prefer by far to be a WG. For them, the difference between a WG and a TG seems to have a sociological importance, mainly due to the fact that the FITS community is much larger than the IAU TG. The President suggests that the point be discussed between the new President and Vice-President and the FITS Task Group. [...] 1.3 OFFICERS, ORGANIZING COMMITTEE, MEMBERS and CONSULTANTS FOR 1997-2000 [...] Working groups and Task groups and their chairpersons for 1997-2000: WG Astronomical Data: E. Raimond, Vice-chair R.P. Norris WG Information Handling: P.B. Boyce WG Libraries: F. Murtagh/U. Grothkopf TG Data Centres & Networks: F. Genova TG Designations: H.R. Dickel TG FITS: D.C. Wells, Vice-chair E. Raimond TG UDC 52: G.A. Wilkins 1.4 RESOLUTIONS Six resolutions were discussed and proposed to the General Assembly, which adopted three of them on August 27th, dealing with: - proposal for registering a new acronym; - support to data archiving and Data Centers; - FITS evolution to take into account year 2000. [...] 2. Working and Task Groups meetings and reports As explained above, only a brief summary of the Working and Task Groups meetings and of reports sent by the WG and TG chairpersons is given in this text. More detailed versions will be posted on the Commission 5 WWW service at INASAN when available. 2.1 TG ON DESIGNATIONS (AUGUST 21ST, 1997, CHAIRPERSON H.R. DICKEL) A joint meeting of the TG on Designations, with members of the FITS TG, Data Centers, Journal editors, librarians, was held on the same day before the TG Business Meeting, to discuss recent developments in TG on Designation and common problems. [...] - Proposal to increase the minimum support length at 8 characters for the FITS keyword OBJECT to 32 characters. Several people spoke in support of this proposal; the main speaker was D.C. Wells of NRAO who is chair of the FITS TG. There is no technical reason that this cannot be changed from the original, now out-dated 8 character limit to 32 characters. D.C. Wells had put this proposal on the FITS group news but there was no response - pro or con. The Data Centers and electronic journals realize the need for this change to facilitate the exchange, search and retrieval of data; unique designations are needed for objects and it is no longer possible with 8 or even 16 characters. 24 characters would suffice for many current designations but 32 allow for the immediate future. [...] 2.5 TG FITS (AUGUST 21ST, 1997, CHAIRPERSON D.C. WELLS) D.C. Wells presented a report on the activities of the FITS TG. The activities of the NSSDC FITS support office were also reviewed (report prepared by B.M. Schlesinger and presented by D.C. Wells). It was recalled that the FITS WG was created by the General assembly resolution at Baltimore (1988); it is the "owner" of the FITS format, and controls the evolution of the FITS standard. There are three regional FITS Committees. The IAU FITS TG only considers proposed changes which have been approved by all regional committees and for which interoperability has been demonstrated, and which get approval by 3/4 majority and no "NO" vote. BINTABLE was approved in June 1994. The TG is currently considering year-2000 DATExxx proposal (a Resolution was approved in Kyoto on that topic). Probable activities for the next triennium include the approval of the year-2000 DATExxxx agreement, in 1997; approval of the NOST V2.0 FITS standard, probably during 1998 (this will be a comprehensive compilation of the FITS standard); register of FITS with the Internet as a MIME data type, probably in 1998 after approval of the NOST standard; and to continue the progress towards a WCS (World Coordinate System) agreement. A technical panel of the FITS support office is preparing draft for Version 2, including IMAGE, BINTABLE, blocking agreement, defining keyword value, table entry, data display formats no longer relying on FORTRAN definitions. This will be available for community review in 1-3 months. Version 4.0 of the User's Guide was released in May 1997 (348 accesses on ftp site in a couple of months). The Standard document got 246 accesses on ftp on the first half year of 1997. WWW pages have been installed, which contains basics and information, and the list of extension types registered with the IAU TG. Expansion of the service is planned. Reference: Transactions of the International Astronomical Union, Vol. XXIIIB (1997), pp. 201-205.