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(ESA-IRS) at ESRIN, the European Space Agency 
establishment in Italy, with the exception of 
GEOARCHIVE (UK), GEOREF (USA), GEOLINE (DE), 
GEOBASE (UK), RESORS (Canada) and Selected Water 
Resources (USA). 
It should be noted that in 1991 and 1992, in 
support to the Earth Observation Programme of 
the Agency, RESORS, GEOBASE and Selected Water 
Resources were loaded on the ESRIN computer. 
A 1990 analysis of the 93 major journals dealing 
with remote sensing and photogrammetry indicated 
that RESORS scans 20 remote sensing journals, 
PASCAL 36 journals and GEOBASE 54. Moreover, 
this survey evidenced that very few European 
journals were scanned. Other surveys provided 
new opportunity to quantify the lack of European 
remote sensing journals in existing databases as 
well as the very poor coverage of 
low-circulation and non-mainstream literature. 
This also applies to invaluable documentary 
resources produced at universities and research 
centres in Europe, including technical reports, 
handbooks and other unpublished literature, 
documents commonly known as "grey" literature. 
Meanwhile, the European Space Agency developed a 
multidisciplinary database, the European 
Aerospace Database commonly known as EAD, aiming 
at covering all grey literature documents in 
aerospace and aerospace related fields, 
generated by European organisations located in 
its 13 Member States and Participating 
countries. The database was officially released 
for access in 1990. Aiming at producing the 
database in harmonised and unified standards by: 
a network of European organisations, ad-hoc 
processing tools and software were developed. 
The database is produced by ESA-IRS and loaded 
on its computer located at ESRIN. 
4. COOPERATIVE ESRIN-GDTA AGREEMENT 
AND CREATION OF THE PROTOTYPE OF THE 
EUROPEAN REMOTE SENSING AND 
PHOTOGRAMMETRY (ERSAP) DATABASE 
In 1990 a cooperative agreement was concluded 
between ESRIN and the "Groupement pour le 
Développement de la Recherche Aérospatiale/GDTA" 
(France). 
Aiming at creating ultimately a specific 
computerised database, the European Remote 
Sensing and Photogrammetry (ERSAP) Database, an 
online bibliographic file with its 
corresponding archives, the terms of the 
Agreement were: 
1. The creation in 1991 of a prototype of the 
ERSAP database, under the respective 
budgets of both Agencies, and its loading 
on the computer of ESA-IRS, who was 
entrusted the task to produce the database. 
2. The promotion of the ERSAP project, using 
the prototype, amongst various groups of 
the Earth Observation Programme of the 
European Space Agency,  GDTA partner 
organisations as well as other European 
organisations and institutes involved in 
remote sensing, photogrammetry and related 
fields. 
By the end of 1990 a meeting was held with the 
following European Centres, the GDTA partner 
347 
organisations, constituting the nucleus of the 
producers of the future database: 
= ITC (Netherlands) 
= GDTA (France) 
- IGN (France) 
E The Laboratoire d'Informatique 
Appliquée former ORTSOM (France) 
= The Laboratoire de Télédétection de 
l'Université Catholique de Louvain, 
= BRGM: the Bureau de Recherches 
Géologiques et Minières (France) 
The meeting, amongst various aspects, evidenced 
the need for: 
" a harmonisation policy between the 
future European partners and producers 
aiming at the elimination of possible 
redundancy of work 
= a common format to be used when 
dealing with new records 
= a reformatting of existing records 
already in electronic media 
The same meeting confirmed: 
= the poor coverage of European Remote 
Sensing and Photogrammetry records in 
existing relevant databases 
= the existence of documentary resources 
in European organisations 
= the usefulness to develop a European 
Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry 
(ERSAP) Database 
and recommended a survey to be performed of all 
institutes and organisations in Europe including 
not only the countries of the European Space 
Agency Member States and European Communities 
Member States but also other central and 
oriental European countries. 
In August 1991 the prototype of the ERSAP 
database was created, including 100 records of 
CETEL DESS dissertations (sponsored by GDTA) 
with French and English abstracts and controlled 
terms from the EAD/NASA thesaurus, loaded on the 
ESRIN computer and demonstrated at the 
International Astronautical Federation (IAF) 
congress in Montreal in October 1991. 
In February 1992, the pilot database was 
demonstrated to the Earth Observation Programme 
of the European Space Agency who recommended to 
include into the prototype 500 additional items 
generated under the Earth Observation 
Directorate of the Agency in the following 
categories: technical reports, handbooks, 
conference papers, technical bulletins as well 
as Earth Observation newsletters. 
These documents are being acquired for further 
processing and entry into the prototype. 
5. THE EUROPEAN REMOTE SENSING AND 
PHOTOGRAMMETRY (ERSAP) DATABASE 
PROJECT 
5.1 Major Features 
The European Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry 
(ERSAP) Database is an online bibliographic file 
resident on the ESA-IRS host. The references 
contain the title in English and original