The Smithsonian Oceanographic Sorting Center (SOSC) was established in December of 1962 in Washington, D. C. The Center came into existence as a service unit to receive, sort and distribute to specialists the mass of uncommitted natural history material expected from United States participation in the International Indian Ocean Expedition (IIOE). The bulk of samples received were collected on the cruises of the research vessels, ANTON BRUUN and TE VBOA, supported by the National Science Foundation.

The vast amount of records handled by SOSC has necessitated initiating an automatic data processing (ADP) system. A catalogue has been prepared on taxonomic names, reduced-data and field-data-log formats have been devised and code systems for institutions, expeditions, vessels and collecting gear have been developed. Many tons of material, comprising 5,965 samples, were received by SOSC from the IIOE. Over 4,500 samples have been sorted into 3,653,000 specimens. About 1.5 million IIOE specimens have been despatched in 759 shipments to approximately 140 specialists in U. S.A. and 17 foreign countries. Based on training for, and experience gained in, sorting IIOE collections, SOSC has pursued an active program in processing samples from all of the world's seas