Cyberinfrastructure, data, and libraries, part 2: Libraries and the data challenge: Roles and actions for libraries

D-Lib Magazine

Volumn 13, Issue 9-10, 2007, Pages

  Gold, Anna ^a  

^a MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 35448999293     PISSN: None     EISSN: 10829873     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1045/july20september-gold-pt2     Document Type: Review

References (39)

1. For instance at MIT Libraries, one professional position supports use of GIS, with a second position funded at the campus level; and one professional librarian serves social science data needs, with additional technical support provided through a cooperative relationship between Harvard and MIT. In major research libraries at least one dedicated professional for each type of data is a common staffing model; in some cases data services for social science data and GIS are closely integrated. Formal bioinformatics service programs in libraries are less common in academic libraries, with the exception of some larger medical libraries.
2. ICPSR, 〈http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
3. A special curriculum for social science data librarianship was proposed by Frank Olke and Fredric Gey in 2006. The content of the curriculum they propose might be offered via a variety of academic departments and would include courses in social science data sets, statistical database management, metadata and data semantics, data library operation, Statistical disclosure analysis and networking. "Social science data librarianship - A university curriculum," Jan. 11 2006 v. 8. [sic] 〈http://hpcrd.lbl.gov/staff/ olken/ssdl/iassist_ssdl_curriculum.pdf〉 Accessed 9/12/07.
4. Digital Library Federation Workshop on Social Science Data Archives: Report of the meeting held January 27-28, 1999 (Princeton University), 〈http://www.diglib.org/collections/ssda/ssdaresults.htm〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
5. For non-librarians, the US federal depository program may be unfamiliar. One way to think of it is as a pre-digital distributed library of federal information, with well-defined redundancies and archival responsibilities.
6. Camila Gabaldón and John Repplinger, "GIS and the academic library: A survey of libraries offering GIS services in two consortia." Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, 2006 n. 48. 〈http://www.istl.org/06-fall/refereed.html〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
7. Ibid.
8. JaNae Kinikin and Keith Hench, "Follow-up survey of GIS at smaller academic libraries." Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, 2005, n. 43. 〈http://www.istl.org/05-summer/article1.html〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
9. David Osterbur et al., "Vignettes: diverse library staff offering diverse bioinformatics services," Journal of the Medical Library Association, 2006 July; 94(3): 306, E188-E191. 〈http://www. pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1525318〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
10. Clifford Lynch, "Medical libraries, bioinformatics, and networked information: a coming convergence?" Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, 1999 October; 87(4): 408-414. 〈http://www. pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi? tool=pubmed&pubmedid=10550026〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
11. See NISTs Data Gateway 〈http://srdata.nist.gov/gateway/〉 and index 〈http://www.nist. gov/srd/〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
12. Knovel, 〈http://www.knovel.com/〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
13. California Explores the Ocean, Fish Bulletin's Fish Catch Statistics, 〈http://ceo.ucsd. edu/fishcatchtables/fish-catch- download.html〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
14. See description of Cornell University Metadata Services, 〈http://metadata.library.cornell.edu/projects.htm〉 Accessed 9/12/07.
15. Julie Linden and Ann Green, "Don't leave the data in the dark," D-Lib Magazine, January 2006, v. 12 n. 1 〈doi:10.1045/ january2006-linden〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
16. See Liz Lyon, Dealing with Data: Roles, Rights, Responsibilities and Relationships, Consultancy Report, UKOLN, University of Bath, 19th June 2007. Lyon's chart (p. 56) of "roles and responsibilities" mentions data centers, scientists, users, and institutions, but not libraries or librarians, 〈http://www.iisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/programme digital_repositories/project_dealing_with_data.aspx〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
17. A related statement of principle authored by Stephane Goldstein for the RIN (Research Information Network), Stewardship of Digital Research Data - Principles and Guidelines, does mention libraries as key collaborators in data stewardship, 〈http://www.rin.ac.uk/dataprinciples〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
18. James Jacobs and Charles Humphrey, "Preserving research data", Communications of the ACM, Vol. 47 (9), pp. 27-29.
19. D. Scott Brandt, "Data, research, metadata, metaresearch," presentation at ACRL/STS, ALA annual meeting, June 2007. 〈http://www. ala.org/ala/acrlbucket/stsconferencepro/annual2007programs/brandt.pdf〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
20. Examples include data management tools such as Elsevier's MDL Isentris, 〈http://www. mdl.com/products/framework/isentris〉. Accessed 9/12/07;
21. knowledge management tools such as ChemDraw from CambridgeSoft 〈http://www.cambridgesoft.com/software/ChemDraw/〉. Accessed 9/12/07;
22. and "deep indexing" tools such as CSA Illustrata, offering access to data, variables and other content represented in tables, maps, photographs and other figures in journal literature 〈http://www.csa.com/ factsheets/objectsclust-nats-set-c. php〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
23. Data journal publishing is not new: a long-standing example is the Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data, published since 1972 by ACS and later AIP for NIST. New models for data publishing have been discussed recently by Donald Waters of the Mellon Foundation, 〈http://www.sis. pitt.edu/~repwkshop/papers/waters.pdf〉. Accessed 9/12/07;
24. an "overlay journal" approach to data publishing is being piloted in the UK. See the Overlay Journal Infrastructure for Meteorological Sciences (OJIMS) Project 〈http://www.see.leeds. ac.uk/research/ias/ dynamics/current/ojims.html〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
25. These efforts are not limited to the commercial world; an exciting recent development is Science Commons' unveiling of the Neurocommons, a data mining tool developed in the commercial sector and released as open source, 〈http://sciencecommons.org/proiects/data/〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
26. Other innovative approaches to blended and enhanced publication of data, text, and other media are described in "The coming revolution in scholarly communications & cyberinfrastructure," CT Watch Quarterly, vol. 3 no. 3, August 2007, 〈http://www.ctwatch.org/quarterly/articles/2007/ 08/〉 Accessed 9/12/07.
27. See Brandt (Ibid.) citing the ACRL Roundtable on Technology and Change in Academic Libraries, November 2-3, 2006: "...the Web gives rise to changing conceptions of knowledge production and use. ...Knowledge that is fluid and even imperfect today carries higher value than knowledge perceived as static and intact. Data that can be copied, pasted, mixed, adapted, recast for evolving purposes and new modes of understanding has very strong appeal in today's information environment, particularly for young people. The problem of managing and preserving knowledge produced in these shifting realms of digital proliferation is enormous, and it is one that librarians need to be integral to solving." 〈http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlissues/future/ changingroles.htm〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
28. To Stand the Test of Time: Long-term Stewardship of Digital Data Sets in Science and Engineering, 〈http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/digdatarpt. pdf〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
29. An example of such a standard is DDI, an XML-based standard for the content, presentation, transport, and preservation of social science data sets. 〈http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/DDI/〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
30. For example, in January 2005, CISTI and CODATA issued a report on data access proposing that a national body ("Data Canada") be established as a depository of unpublished and supplementary data. See: National Consultation on Access to Scientific Research Data 〈http://ncasrd- cnadrs.scitech.gc.ca/〉. Accessed 9/12/07).
31. See for instance work at MIT Libraries on SIMILE 〈http://simile. mit.edu/〉, accessed 9/12/07);
32. and the incentives of increased exposure and citation offered to faculty by librarians marketing their institutional repositories, for which see "Institutional repositories: A review of content recruitment strategies," Timothy Mark and Kathleen Shearer, Canadian Association of Research Libraries, June 27, 2006, 〈http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla72/ papers/155-Mark_Shearer-en.pdf〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
33. For a description of the JHU partnership, see Pamela Higgins, "Virtual Observatory to preserve massive cosmic images online," Johns Hopkins Gazette, October 23, 2006, 〈http://www.jhu.edu/ ~gazette/2006/23oct06/23virtua.html〉. Accessed 9/12/07;
34. for the Purdue center, see 〈http://d2c2.lib.purdue.edu/d2c2about. html〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
35. Pauline Simpson, National Oceanography Centre, UK, "Libraries supporting E-Science: Combining cultures," EURASLIC 12, Abstract at: 〈http://library.ibss.org.ua/Default.aspx?tabid=304〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
36. Karen S. Baker and Florence Millerand, "Scientific infrastructure design: Information environments and knowledge processes, to appear October 2007 in Proceedings of the American Society of Information Science and Technology. Preprint at 〈http://interoperability.ucsd.edu/docs/ 07BakerMillerand_07asist_KnowledgeProvinces.pdf〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
37. GSLIS, Master of Science-Concentration in Data Curation, 〈http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/programs/ms/data_curation.html〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
38. Chris Greer, "The digital data universe of the future," Library of Congress webcast, 10/11/06 〈http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/ feature_wdesc.php?rec=3937〉. Accessed 9/12/07.
39. See Amy Stout's account of these activities at the MIT Libraries, "The data dilemma," paper presented at the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Conference, June 2007, in Honolulu Hawaii.