ABSTRACT
The design of the correct data formats, ontologies, and software tools needed for readers experiments or collections are a crucial step in correct scientific design and good research practice. Data stewards should seek to make data optimally usable and reusable, not only in the study for which they were generated or collected, but also in future studies. In many cases, the capture format is initially dictated by the software packages coupled to the instrument through which the data are measured or collected. However, even for entirely new types of data, any of the existing data formats or templates may be well suited or the combination of existing formats, vocabularies, etc., suffices. Many attempts are under way to develop data search engines, which are all challenged by the enormous variety in metadata standards, formats, and the data formats themselves. Storage capacity and condition planning is a serious activity in good data stewardship, and goes way beyond 'enough disc space'.
