Case Study: The creation and maintenance of the UK Space Directory published online by the British National Space Centre

The British National Space Centre (BNSC) is the UK’s space agency; its purpose is to maximise Britain’s opportunities in space science and the commercial exploitation of space technology, both nationally and internationally.

BNSC publishes the UK Space Directory which provides an overview of the space sector, from academic institutions and university resources to trade associations, professional bodies, government departments and commercial space companies. ABC had already managed the mailing database for the distribution of Space UK, a regular publication that is sent to individuals and organisations with an interest or involvement in space exploration, for a number of years. We were therefore asked also to manage the database of those organisations listed in the UK Space Directory, and to ready the data for publication to coincide with a forthcoming Farnborough Air Show.

Since the previous edition of the directory had not been produced for some time, BNSC felt that it was time to take a critical look at the entire compilation. After weeding out organisations no longer deemed appropriate and adding in a number of new organisations, ABC mailed all the data subjects in order to update their entry; this consisted not only of the more normal contact details, but also two narrative entries describing each organisation. After telephone follow-up, all the data was checked and, if necessary, re-categorised before being output for publication — all within a very tight time frame.

Despite having produced a hard copy of the database, BNSC felt that it was no longer appropriate to continue the directory in this form, and it decided to move its publication to the web. This had the major advantages of significantly reduced cost and vastly improved timeliness (with the best will in the world, the printed version could well be out of date while still at the printers, whereas the online version is pretty much updated in real time).

A set of web forms were made available online to enable new space-related organisations to propose themselves, and for existing data subjects to advise changes to their own entries (click here to see examples of these; note that the data is not current), while BNSC forwards changes it receives to ABC by e-mail. All amendments, irrespective of how they are received, are made on receipt and, since ABC now uploads the updated database direct to the website each week, the directory is therefore much more up-to-date than ever before. Commenting on the changes to the UK Space Directory, BNSC’s Information Manager, Stuart Grayson, noted: “Data has to be more timely, especially now that the information is being continually uploaded to the web, and ABC is helping us to achieve this. It is no longer enough for the data to be seen as up-to-date only at fixed points in time eg. to coincide with the publication of hard copy, it must be kept up-to-date. Users’ expectations as to data currency are greater than ever before and if information were perceived to be out-of-date this would jeopardise the credibility of the whole exercise.”

The bottom line for this project was:

• initial data had to be updated professionally in a short space of time; non-respondents were followed up by telephone to ensure that the directory’s coverage was as comprehensive as possible
• unlike simple mailing databases, the UK Space Directory needs to incorporate large blocks of narrative text (running into thousands of characters per organisation)
• the raw data needed to be available in a form that makes it easy to publish, both on paper and uploaded onto the web
• data must be kept up-to-date; in addition to the day-to-day changes notified via the web this is achieved by e-mail broadcasts to data subjects whose records have not been updated for some time (and by ‘snail’-mailshots to those data subjects with no e-mail contact data, or where this has changed)

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