Scientists may be reluctant to share their data until they can publish their findings, at which time they _have_ to pony up something substantial to get it (their article) by reviewers. That could be similar to an agency reluctant to share their geospatial data when they are not real confident in it and realize that announcing it via metadata may bring to them more attention or scrutiny of their data than they want. As far as reluctance to sharing data goes, scientists are probably no worse in this regard than GISers (and many GISers _are_ scientists). In regards to the question about science-based groups implementing metadata: Other sciences were documenting their data (without calling it metadata) long before GIS became an acronym. GIS is really a Johnny-come-lately to metadata. In many respects, building a GIS data set from various sources then documenting it with metadata is much like synthesizing a chemical compound from various reagents, then describing the procedure. A journal a