New Directions for Nuclear Data

The evaluation of nuclear data has gone on for over 75 years. After WWII it was realized that the rate of accumulation of nuclear data had become too rapid for individual scientists and engineers to scan the literature so the modern nuclear data program was funded in the US by an act of Congress under the leadership of Katherine Way. In the 1970's at Oak Ridge National Laboratory the Nuclear Data Sheets ENSDF file format was designed and continues to be used, largely unchanged, today. Although originally envisioned to support nuclear applications, ENSDF today now largely supports basic nuclear structure research. As data evaluation became a specialization a gulf developed between the research, application, and data communities that has widened over time. At this juncture in history we are facing the joint dilemmas of disconnects between research and data activities, an aging nuclear data workforce, and pressures from funding agencies to work more efficiently. In this talk I will discuss recent developments and opportunities in nuclear data and the challenges ahead of us to modernize the nuclear data program and better integrate it into the nuclear physics research community.