NOAA produces two different types of publications: journal articles and what are commonly called NOAA publications. NOAA publications are considered Grey Literature which is defined as: documents "produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in print and electronic formats, but which is not controlled by commercial publishers ." Often this refers to government reports and other publications.
NOAA publications are dictated and defined by NOAA Administrative Orders, specifically:
While NAO 201-32G defines the type of series publications that can be created, little information is provided about how to go about establishing a new series nor is the guidance from DOC, however there are some general steps:
DOIs (digital object identifiers) are used to identify an article or document and provide a permanant link to the item. DOIs are only assigned to NOAA published materials, specifically NOAA series documents that have already passed any internal or peer review processes issued after January 1, 2015. If a publication in a NOAA series is submitted to the NOAA IR, the NCL will assign a DOI to the document and include it in the metadata for the IR Record. Submitters are also able to request a DOI prior to submission if they intend to embed the DOI into the document prior to submission.
Authors are asked to use the DOI Request Form to acquire a DOI. If after 120 days, the publications in question are still not submitted to the IR, NOAA Central Libraary reserves the right to delete their reserved DOIs. Reserved DOIs will be emailed to the requester within 24 hours of the request.
