We feel that ESSD moves into a new phase of utility to all partners - data providers, data users, and data centres. Among the notable impact: at least three recently-published datasets from ESSD provide direct support to the IPCC Asssessment Report currently in preparation.

In our continuing effort to provide open accesss to data of high quality and high impact, we ask your attention to several issues that affect our review and publication processes.

1) Use of persistent identifiers.
2) Reliable data repositories
3) Open Access
4) On-line Discussion
5) ESSD Special Issues.

If of interest and time permits, we will discuss the question of who should be (co-)author in the case of a data journal.