Why Is the Digital Preservation Network Disbanding? Lessons from organizational challenges

Why Is the Digital Preservation Network Disbanding? Roger C. Schonfeld. The Scholarly Kitchen; Society for Scholarly Publishing. Dec 13, 2018.
     "The long term stewardship of digital objects and collections through digital preservation is an essential imperative for scholarship and society. Yet its value is intangible and its rewards are deferred. It falls on organizations to invest in preservation, often less out of a sense of anticipated exclusive returns and more out of a sense of contributing to a community mission." It is essential that we discuss the lessons we can learn from organizational challenges.

DPN was a commitment to replicate the data of research and scholarship across diverse environments and to enable existing preservation capacity. It offered an elegant technical solution but the product offering was never as clear as it could have been, and ultimately could not be sustained. Most DPN members did not use the network services and membership declined. Some patterns emerged: 

• Not every storage need requires a preservation solution, and the members were "in some cases, unsuccessful in distinguishing the added value of a preservation solution from cloud storage."
• Many library systems were not originally prepared to support DPN’s ingest workflow. For a number of members, the content to be preserved was spread across servers and systems, often with limited curatorial control. 
• The product definition took too long to emerge and the value proposition was not uniformly understood.
• DPN’s pricing model did not generate the revenue that DPN’s model anticipated. 
• Some libraries signed up more out of courtesy or community citizenship than commitment.
• Membership models are ill-suited to product organizations and marketplace competition.  

There are broader implications in the disbandment of DPN. The article states that  DPN will not be the last closure, merger, or other reorganization. "It seems clear that we are in a period of instability for collaborative library community efforts and more major changes are surely on the horizon."

Digital Preservation Matters.

Current Issues and Approaches to Curating Student Research Data

Current Issues and Approaches to Curating Student Research Data. Andrew Creamer. Bulletin of the Association for Information Science and Technology. August 2015. [PDF May require subscription.]
     University libraries have collaborated with their colleges to archive and/or publish the students’ electronic theses and dissertations online. But there is little consistency in how they archive, curate and publish of the students’ research data and digital scholarship that underlies the ETDs. Most institutions have no policy on the caring for the ETD related data. Others have said that “Dissertation datasets represent ‘low-hanging fruit’ for universities who are developing institutional data collections” yet few have addressed the issues. At a recent conference, it was stated that curation of students’ ETD data can be seen as a scale model of the scholarly communication lifecycle and that these are valuable collections that universities should pursue, archive and make available.

One presenter described three organization-level digital curation challenges that libraries need to address:

1. people not knowing how to do the work,
2. not enough time or incentive for people to learn and
3. insufficient resources.

Academic library administrators have an unrealistic expectation that all digital responsibilities and expertise can be put into just one employee.  Aaron Collie at Michigan is working on a three-year strategic plan to create a "collaborative approach to digital curation that will put the policies, people and technologies in place to build organizational capacity." “I think digital preservation is a strategic direction that is too often operationalized as an individual responsibility and skill set.” 

There are important questions to be asked about how to best curate and describe student ETD data.

• Should there be more oversight over the documentation quality and quantity students provide with their datasets?
• Should these digital objects receive their own record and metadata?
• What are the best ways to show the relationships between these objects and the ETD?
• Can we make the same archival/preservation commitments to supplementary data files that we do for the pdf file of the ETD?

A study of 93 ETDs with related data in OSU’s repository:

• 45% were Excel files (30% of which had macros, charts and/or linked to other data),
• 22% were image files and
• 25% were document files.
• Of the remaining included text, database and/or statistical software files, of which
• 23% were code (and 15% of these executable files),
• 12% of the files were metadata.
• 30% were unknown, un-operable and/or obsolete; and
• 3% of the ETDs were missing data files from what was listed among their manifests.

The consensus was that student data collections are worth pursuing and have much value for the public and research enterprise. Libraries interested in this data need to be realize that the content may be more important than previously thought.

Digital Preservation Matters.

Where Should You Keep Your Data?

Where Should You Keep Your Data? Karen M. Markin. The Chronicle of Higher Education. June 23, 2015.
     Federal funding agencies have made it clear that grant proposals must include plans for sharing research data with other scientists. What has not been clear is how and where researchers should store their data, which can range from sensitive personal medical information to enormous troves of satellite imagery.  Although data-sharing requirements have been in place for years, universities have been slow to assist principal investigators make that happen. Now if you don’t comply with the new policies, you might be prohibited from receiving additional grant money. Funding can be withheld from researchers who don’t comply. Principal investigators are urged to place their data in existing publicly accessible repositories and the NIH has a list of repositories. The NSF directs researchers to specific repositories.
The "DMP Tool," hosted by the University of California, provides a free, interactive form that walks you through the preparation of a data-management plan for more than a dozen organizations.

Many libraries are playing a role in this effort and researchers should check with reference librarians for help on this. Data storage and preparation can get complicated and it’s useful to have someone to guide you through the process. Federal agencies plan to establish standards for these so-called "metadata."

Related posts:

• Plan for Increasing Access to Scientific Publications and Digital Scientific Data from NIH Funded Scientific Research
• Data Management Plans
• AHRQ Public Access to Federally Funded Research
• Got Data? A Guide to Data Preservation in the Information Age

Digital Preservation Matters.

figshare gets serious about storage; partnership with DuraCloud

figshare gets serious about storage. Dan Valen. Website. June 17, 2015. 
     A new partnership has been created with DuraCloud to better manage and store an institution’s research data. figshare is a repository where users can make their research outputs available in a citable, shareable and discoverable manner. This is combined with the storage, management, and preservation functionalities of DuraCloud. The figshare and DuraCloud collaboration will then ensure all of the captured data is managed and preserved appropriately to align with institutional and funder policies.

The data can be pushed from figshare to DuraCloud that has archiving options which will ensure that the data follows data management plan and grant requirements for archiving and preservation. DuraCloud is open source software and can function within Amazon S3 storage or part of any existing institutional infrastructure. DuraCloud can also connect to Amazon Glacier, Digital Preservation Network (DPN) and Chronopolis. This can be a service for added archiving and preservation of all figshare content. 

Related posts:

• Announcing the ArchivesDirect Price Drop
• New DuraCloud Digital Archiving and Preservation Services.
• DuraCloud Now Offers Low Cost Glacier Storage!
• Chronopolis and DuraCloud: Doing integration right
• Digital Preservation Network (DPN) Launches Member Content Pilot

Digital Preservation Matters.

Researchers Open Repository for ‘Dark Data’

Researchers Open Repository for ‘Dark Data’. Mary Ellen McIntire. Chronicle of Higher Education.  July 22, 2015.
     Researchers working to create a one-stop shop to retain data sets after the papers they were produced for are published. The DataBridge project will attempt to expand the life cycle of so-called dark data by creating an archive for data sets and metadata, and will group them into clusters of information to make relevant data easier to find. They can then be reused, re-purposed, and then be reused by others to further science. A key aspect of the project will be to allow researchers to make connections pull in other data of a similar nature.

The researchers want to also include archives of social-media posts by creating algorithms to sort through tweets for researchers studying the role of social media. This could save people time who may otherwise spend a lot of time cleaning their data reinventing the wheel. The project could serve as a model for libraries at research institutions that are looking to better track data in line with federal requirements and extend researchers’ “trusted network” of colleagues with whom they share data.

Related posts:

• Data Archives and Digital Preservation
• Plan for Increasing Access to Scientific Publications and Digital Scientific Data
• Incentives and Motivations for Sharing Research Data, a researcher's perspective
• Five steps to decide what data to keep
• The Dataverse Network
• New policy recommendations on open access to research data

Digital Preservation Matters.

Track the Impact of Research Data with Metrics; Gauge Archive Capacity

How to Track the Impact of Research Data with Metrics. Alex Ball, Monica Duke.  Digital Curation Centre. 29 June 2015.
   This guide from the DCC provides help on how to track and measure the impact of research data. It provides:

• impact measurement concepts, services and tools for measuring impact
• tips on increasing the impact of your data 
• how institutions can benefit from data usage monitoring  
• help to gauge capacity requirements in storage, archival and network systems
• information on setting up promotional activities 

Institutions can benefit from data usage monitoring as they:

• monitor the success of the infrastructure providing access to the data
• gauge capacity requirements in storage, archival and network systems
• create promotional activities around the data, sharing and re-use
• create special collections around datasets;
• meet funder requirements to safeguard data for the established lifespan

Tips for raising research data impact

• deposit data in a trustworthy repository
• provide appropriate metadata
• enable open access
• apply a license to the data about what uses are permitted
• raise awareness to ensure it is visible (citations, publication, provide the dataset identifier, etc)

Digital Preservation Matters.

Collection, Curation, Citation at Source: Publication@Source 10 Years On

Collection, Curation, Citation at Source: Publication@Source 10 Years On. Jeremy G. Frey, et al. International Journal of Digital Curation. Vol 10, No 2, 2015.
   The article describes a scholarly knowledge cycle which says the accumulation of knowledge is based on the continuing use and reuse of data and information. Collection, curation, and citation are three processes intrinsic to the workflows of the cycle. The currency of collection, curation, and citation is metadata."Policies should recognize that small amounts of adequately characterized, focused data are preferable to large amounts of inadequately defined and controlled data stored in a random repository." The increasing size of data-sets and the growing risk of loss through catastrophic failure (such as a disk failure) has led to researchers to use cloud storage, perhaps too uncritically so.

The responsibilities of researchers for meeting the requirements of sound governance and ensuring the quality of their work have become more apparent. The article places the responsibility for curation firmly with the originator of the data. "Researchers should organize their data and preserve it with semantically rich metadata, captured at source, to provide short- and long-term advantages for sharing and collaboration."  Principal Investigators, as custodians, are particularly responsible for clinical data management and security (though curation and preservation activities exist in other research roles). "Curators usually attempt to add links to the original publications or source databases, but in practice, provenance records are often absent, incomplete or ad hoc, often despite curators’ best efforts. Also, manually managed provenance records are at higher risk of human error or falsification." There is a pressing need for training and education to encourage researchers to curate the data as they collect it at source.

"All science is strongly dependent on preserving, maintaining, and adding value to the research record, including the data, both raw and derived, generated during the scientific process. This statement leads naturally to the assertion that all science is strongly dependent on curation."

Digital Preservation Matters.

Libraries and Research Data Services

Libraries and Research Data Services. Megan Bresnahan, Andrew Johnson. University of Colorado Boulder. 2014. [PDF]
A presentation that looks at the importance of training librarians to become experts in research data services (RDS). “Reassigning existing library staff is the most common tactic for offering RDS. This approach also needs to be supported with professional development for staff so they can gain the required expertise to provide the full range of RDS”

Some feedback from Subject Librarians shows that they know it is part of their duties and that it is becoming more important, but that it is difficult to accomplish in the current environment:

• “Research data is intimidating!”
• “How can I take on research data support with so much else already on my plate?!”
• “I need practical tools to use to help researchers with their data”
• “Helping faculty and students with their data is an increasingly important part of my liaison duties”

Becoming expert requires data services training with established learning goals. With training, Subject Librarians are able to:

• Understand the stages
• Define the role
• Apply skills
• Plan for outreach
• Feel confident
• Engage with researchers

DataQ is a website that serves as a collaborative, peer-reviewed reference tool for librarians providing research data services

Digital Preservation Matters.

Data Archives and Digital Preservation

Data Archives and Digital Preservation. Council of European Social Science Data Archives. June 1, 2015.
Data Archives and Digital Preservation Data archives play a central role in research. Data is considered “the new gold”. There is increasing pressure on researchers to manage, archive, and share their datadata archives. It is important to securely store research data, and to allow researchers to reuse data in their own analyses or teaching.

Archives are much more than just a storage facility; they actively curate and preserve research data. They must have suitable strategies, policies, and procedures to maintain the usability, understandability and authenticity of the data. There are also numerous requirements from users, data producers, and funders. In the social science research data preservation and sharing, archives have the added responsibility of protecting the human subjects of the research.

The CESSDA site has many resources. Some of these are:

• What is digital preservation 
• OAIS 
• Data appraisal and ingest 
• Documentation and metadata 
• Access and reuse 
• Trusted digital repositories: audit and certification.

Digital Preservation Matters.

Digitization and the Preservation of Knowledge

Digitization and the Preservation of Knowledge. The Media Preservation Initiative at Indiana University Bloomington. October 10. 2013.
Indiana University President Michael McRobbie, in announcing the Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative, said in an address: “For over 25 centuries, the great universities of the world have always had three fundamental missions:

• the creation of knowledge (that is, research and innovation),
• the dissemination of knowledge (that is, education and learning), and
• the preservation of knowledge.

We tend, these days, to mainly associate the first two of these missions with a university."

The advent of the digital age is giving importance of the third mission "the preservation of knowledge". Previously, the preservation of knowledge was the almost exclusive mission of libraries and museums. Digital material is vital to fully realizing the promise of online education. The digital collections are a large investment over many years. The digital collections will continue to grow, as will the scholarly dialog concerning them, which "defines the character, values and heritage of an institution." Preserving the collections in perpetuity fully maximizes the value of all these collections to the university and the community. The transformation of the third mission of universities from the physical to the virtual world of digitization is both essential and irreversible.

Also announced was an initiative would draw all digitization efforts together into a true university-wide strategy. The goal of this Digitization Master Plan is to digitize and store in some form all the existing collections of lasting importance to research and scholarship, and to ensure the preservation of all new research and scholarship that is born digital. This will support research, education and the preservation of knowledge.

Digital Preservation Matters.

Because digital preservation won’t just go away

Jisc Archivematica project update ...because digital preservation won’t just go away. Jenny Mitcham. Digital Archiving at the University of York blog. 17 April 2015.
Investigating Research Data Management; recognize that the tools used by digital archivists could have much to offer those who are charged with managing research data. The research will be based around the following questions:

1. Why are we bothering to 'preserve' research data. What are the drivers here and what are the risks if we don't?
2. What are the characteristics of research data?
3. How might research data differ from other born digital data that institutions are archiving and preserving?
4. What types of files are researchers producing?
5. How would we incorporate the system into a wider technical infrastructure for research data management and what workflows would we put in place?

Previously they had conducted a survey that looked specifically at software packages used by researchers. They are investigating how existing digital preservation tools would handle these types of data and if these appear in Pronom.

 Digital Preservation Matters.

Digital Curation and Doctoral Research: Current Practice

Digital Curation and Doctoral Research: Current Practice. Daisy Abbott. International Journal of Digital Curation. 10 February 2015.[PDF]
More doctoral students are engaging in research data creation, processing, use, management, and preservation activities (digital duration) than ever before. Digital curation is an intrinsic part of the skills that students are expected to acquire.

Training in research skills and techniques is the key element in the development of a research student. The integration of digital curation into expected research skills is essential. Doctoral supervisors "should discuss and review research data management annually, addressing issues of the capture, management, integrity, confidentiality, security, selection, preservation and disposal, commercialization, costs, sharing and publication of research data and the production of descriptive metadata to aid discovery and re-use when relevant." Those supervisors may not necessarily have those skills themselves. And there is a gap in the literature about why and how to manage, curate, and preserve digital data as part of a PhD program.

While both doctoral students and supervisors can benefit from traditional resources on the topic, the majority of guidance on digital curation takes the form of online resources and training programs. In a survey,

• over 50% of PhD holders consider long-term preservation to be extremely important. 
• under 40% of students consider long-term preservation to be extremely important.
• 90% of doctoral students and supervisors consider digital curation to be moderately to extremely important. 
• Yet 74% of respondents stated that they had limited or no skills in digital curation and only 10% stated that they were “fairly skilled” or “expert”. 

And generally researchers were not are of the digital curation support services that are available. The relatively recent emphasis on digital curation in research nature of or the processes, present problems for supervisors. Developing the appropriate skills and knowledge to create, access, use, manage, store and preserve data should therefore be considered an important part of any researcher’s development. Efforts should be taken to

• Ensure practical digital curation is understood
• Encourage responsibility for digital curation activities in institutional support structures
• Increase the discoverability and availability of digital curation support services

 Digital Preservation Matters.

National Institutes of Health: Plan for Increasing Access to Scientific Publications and Digital Scientific Data from NIH Funded Scientific Research

National Institutes of Health: Plan for Increasing Access to Scientific Publications and Digital Scientific Data from NIH Funded Scientific Research. February 2015.

This document describes NIH’s plans to build upon and enhance its longstanding efforts to increase access to scholarly publications and digital data resulting from NIH-funded research. Sections relevant to digital preservation and long term management:

NIH intends to make public access to digital scientific data the standard for all NIH funded research. Following adoption of the final plan, NIH will:

• Explore steps to require data sharing.
• Ensure that all NIH-funded researchers prepare data management plans and that the plans are evaluated during peer review.
• Develop additional data management policies to increase public access to designated types of biomedical research data.
• Encourage the use of established public repositories and community-based standards.
• Develop approaches to ensure the discoverability of data sets resulting from NIH-funded research to make them findable, accessible, and citable.
• Promote interoperability and openness of digital scientific data generated or managed by NIH.
• Explore the development of a data commons. NIH will explore the development of a commons, a shared space for basic and clinical research output including data, software, and narrative, that follows the FAIR principles of Find, Access, Interoperate and Reuse.

Preservation
Preservation is one of the Public Access Policy’s primary objectives. It wants to ensure that publications and metadata are stored in an archival solution that:

• provides for long-term preservation and access to the content without charge; 
• uses standards, widely available and, to the extent possible, nonproprietary archival formats for text and associated content (e.g., images, video, supporting data); 
• provides access for persons with disabilities

The content in the NIH database is actively curated  using XML records which is future proof, in that XML is technology independent and can be easily and reliably migrated as technology evolves. 

The first principle behind the plan for increasing access to digital scientific data is: The sharing and preservation of data advances science by broadening the value of research data across disciplines and to society at large, protecting the integrity of science by facilitating the validation of results, and increasing the return on investment of scientific research.

Data Management Plans
Data management planning should be an integral part of research planning.  NIH wants to ensure that all extramural researchers receiving Federal grants and contracts for scientific research and intramural researchers develop data management plans describing how they will provide for long-term preservation of, and access to, scientific data in digital formats resulting from federally funded research, or explaining why long-term preservation and access cannot be justified. In order to preserve the balance between the relative benefits of long-term preservation and access and the associated cost and administrative burden, NIH will continue to expect researchers to consider the benefits of long-term preservation of data against the costs of maintaining and sharing the data.

NIH will assess whether the appropriate balance has been achieved in data management plans between the relative benefits of long-term preservation and access and the associated cost and administrative burden. It will also develop guidance with the scientific community to decide which data should be prioritized for long-term preservation and access. NIH will also explore and fund innovative tools and services that improve search, archiving, and disseminating of data, while ensuring long-term stewardship and usability.

Assessing Long-Term Preservation Needs
NIH will provide for the preservation of scientific data and outline options for developing and sustaining repositories for scientific data in digital formats.  The policies expect long-term preservation of data.
Long-term preservation and sustainability will be included in data management plans and will collaborate with other agencies on how best to develop and sustain repositories for digital scientific data.

Digital Preservation Matters.

Sowing the seed: Incentives and Motivations for Sharing Research Data, a researcher's perspective

Sowing the seed: Incentives and Motivations for Sharing Research Data, a researcher's perspective. Knowledge Exchange. November 2014. PDF.
This study has gathered evidence, examples and opinions on incentives for research data sharing from the researchers’ point of view. Using this study will help provide recommendations on developing policies and best practices for data access, preservation, and re-use. A emerging theme today is to make it possible for all researchers to share data and to change the collective attitude towards sharing.

A DCC project, investigating researchers’ attitudes and approaches towards data deposit,
sharing, reuse, curation and preservation found that the data sharing requirements should be defined at the finer-grained level, such as the research group.When researchers talk about ‘data sharing’ there are different modes of data sharing, such as:

1. private management sharing, 
2. collaborative sharing, 
3. peer exchange, 
4. sharing for transparent governance, 
5. community sharing and 
6. public sharing.

Important motivations for researchers to share research data are:

1. When data sharing is an essential part of the research process; 
2. Direct career benefits (greater visibility and recognition of one’s work, reciprocal data)
3. As a normal part of their research circle or discipline;
4. Existing funder and publisher expectations, policies, infrastructure and data services

Some points on preservation of research information for research institution and research funders:

• Recognize and value data as part of research assessment and career advancement
• Set preservation standards for data formats, file formats, and documentation
• Develop clear policies on data sharing and preservation 
• Provide training and support for researchers and students to manage and share data so it becomes part of standard research practice.
• Make all data related to a published manuscript available

Actions of some organizations regarding data management and preservation:

• The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences requests its researchers to digitally preserve research data, ideally via deposit in recognised repositories, to make them openly accessible as much as possible; and to include a data section in every research plan stating how the data produced or collected during the project will be dealt with.
• The Alliance of German Science Organisations adopted principles for the handling of research data, supporting long-term preservation and open access to research data for the benefit of science.
• Research organizations receiving EPSRC funding will from May 2015 be expected to have appropriate policies, processes and infrastructure in place to preserve research data, to publish metadata for their research data holdings, and to provide access to research data securely for 10 years beyond the last data request.
• The European Commission has called  for coordinated actions to drive forward open access, long-term preservation and capacity building to promote open science for all EC and national research funding.
• The UK Economic and Social Research Council has mandated the archiving of research data from all funded research projects. This policy goes hand in hand with the funding of supporting data infrastructure and services. The UK Data Service provides the data infrastructure to curate,
• preserve and disseminate research data, and provides training and support to researchers.

Digital Preservation Matters.

I tried to use the Internet to do historical research. It was nearly impossible.

I tried to use the Internet to do historical research. It was nearly impossible. Gareth Millward. Washington Post.  February 17, 2015. 
How do you organize so much information? So far, the Internet Archive has archived more than 430,000,000,000 web pages. It’s a rich and fantastic resource for historians of the near-past. Never before has humanity produced so much data about public and private lives – and never before have we been able to get at it in one place. In the past it was just a theoretical possibility, but now we have the computing power and a deep enough archive to try to use it.

But it’s a lot more difficult to understand than we thought. "The ways in which we attack this archive, then, are not the same as they would be for, say, the Library of Congress. There (and elsewhere), professional archivists have sorted and cataloged the material. We know roughly what the documents are talking about. We also know there are a finite number. And if the archive has chosen to keep them, they’re probably of interest to us. With the internet, we have everything. Nobody has – or can – read through it. And so what is “relevant” is completely in the eye of the beholder."

Historians must take new approaches to the data. No one can read everything, nor know what is even in the archive. Better sampling, specifically chosen for their historical importance, can give us a much better understanding. We need to ask better questions about how sites are constructed, what links exist between sites, and have more focused searches. And we need to know what questions to ask.

Digital Preservation Matters.

New policy recommendations on open access to research data

New policy recommendations on open access to research data. Angus Whyte. DCC News. 19 January, 2015.
Some of the recommendations of the RECODE case studies concerning open access to research data:

• Develop policies for open access to research data
• Ensure appropriate funding for open access to research data 
• Develop policies and initiatives for researchers for open access to high quality data
• Identify key stakeholders and relevant networks 
• Foster a sustainable ecosystem for open access to research data
• Plan for the long-term, sustainable curation and preservation of open access data
• Develop comprehensive and collaborative technical and infrastructure solutions that afford open access to and long-term preservation of high-quality research data
• Develop technical and scientific quality standards for research data
• Address legal and ethical issues arising from open access to research data
• Support the transition to open research data through curriculum-development and training 

Two things needed with open access to research data:

1. coherent open data ecosystem
2. attention to research practice, processes and data collections
   
    
   Digital Preservation Matters.

Why we should all think about data preservation

Why we should all think about data preservation. Stephanie Taylor. School of Advanced Study. February 19, 2015.
The SHARD project, which ended in 2012, identified  four basic principles of digital preservation for researchers:

1. Start early: The sooner you start thinking about what to preserve, how to do it, and when, the greater the chance of avoiding problems. Early planning means involving everyone in a research project in the discussion to help identify additional issues.
2. Explain it: Context provides meaning and is vital in digital preservation. There is little point in preserving material and data without context.
3. Store it safely: Backups are not preservation. It needs multiple copies in different locations. Use open source file formats and be careful how you and others handle and access files. Select carefully the files to be preserved.
4. Share it: Sharing your research material and data is beneficial.  In one way or another, the main reason to carry out preservation at all, on any level, is to be able to share your work with others, now and in the future.

Many things are being lost or threatened because no one saw a good reason to preserve them until it was almost too late.  The Data Preservation Online Training resource guides students through the reasons to preserve and share data and challenges that they might face.

Digital Preservation Matters.

The Dataverse Network

The Dataverse Network. Harvard Dataverse Network. 2014.
The Dataverse Network is an open source application to publish, share, reference, extract and analyze research data. It facilitates making data available to others and to replicate work of other researchers. The network hosts multiple studies or collections of studies, and each study contains cataloging information that describes the data plus the actual data and complementary files.

The Dataverse Network project develops software, protocols, and community connections for creating research data repositories that automate professional archival practices, guarantee long term preservation, and enable researchers to share, retain control of, and receive web visibility and formal academic citations for their data contributions.

Digital Preservation Matters.

Are libraries sustainable in a world of free, networked, digital information?

Are libraries sustainable in a world of free, networked, digital information? Lluís Anglada. El profesional de la información. 7 November 2014. [PDF]

Interesting article looking at libraries through the stages of modernization, automation and digitization, and at a formula for evaluating the importance of libraries to society. The article concludes that "if the current generation of librarians does not introduce radical changes in the role of libraries, their future is seriously threatened."

The formula proposed is the sustainability is equal to the value divided by the cost, and the value is the use minus the dysfunctions and modified by the perceptions of the library
"S= (U - D + 2P) / C".

Libraries are changing because of technology and needs, but there is a danger that people will perceive them as unable to provide the information that users demand. If this continues, those funding the libraries will provide less support. The perceptions must change in order for libraries to be sustainable.

Some thoughts from the article:

• Libraries are changing from being a space to store, locate and use books to places where people interact and socialize. This should transform the perception that citizens have of their libraries, seeing them as places to ‘change lives by giving people the tools they need to succeed’.
• Libraries depend on public funding, and their future depends on the perception or mental image of libraries held by administrators and policy makers who allocate budgets  
• Libraries used to show statistical data on resources; they must now show their value to those who support them financially 
• The emergence of new roles for libraries does not mean that all library services have evolved over time. In the new environment, some traditional strengths of libraries are weakening.
• Library catalogues and automated systems were innovative in the ’80s, but have been stuck in outmoded practices. Users have adapted quickly to the ‘googlization’ of information and do not understand why they should have to look in different places to get a unique solution to an information need. 
• Two key elements for future library sustainability: perception and adaptation to a new paradigm
• The perception of libraries remains increasingly attached to the printed book, from 69% of Americans in 2005, to 75% in 2010.
• Libraries may end up being seen as useful only to preserve the past (i.e. the printed book), and consequently of little use to handle digital information.
• The library has been steadily declining in importance in university budgets.
• People sustain libraries because of a positive perception and a feeling that the libraries are important. We believe that society still needs the functions performed by libraries and librarians, but the feeling alone does not make them immediately sustainable. 
• We must soon establish a new stereotype of ‘library’ in people’s minds, one that is not based on the physicality of the buildings or books, but focuses on the role of support and assistance in the difficult process of using information and transforming it into knowledge. 
• The creation of perceptions of a library and librarian that are associated with assistance regarding information is a contribution that has not yet been made. 
• This is the challenge and responsibility for young librarians: to create a new perception of our profession. We must establish a new stereotype of ‘library’ in peoples’ minds, one that
  is not based on the physicality of the buildings and books, but on the role of support and assistance in the difficult process of using information and transforming it into knowledge.

Digital Preservation Matters.

Five steps to decide what data to keep

Five steps to decide what data to keep. Angus Whyte. Digital Curation Centre. 31 October 2014.
This guide aims to help UK Higher Education Institutions aid their researchers in making informed choices about what research data to keep.

It will be relevant to researchers making decisions on a project-by-project basis, or formulating departmental guidelines. It assumes that decisions on particular datasets will normally be made by researchers with advice from the appropriate staff (e.g. academic liaison librarians) and taking into account any institutional policy on Research Data Management (RDM) and guidance available within their own domain.

Step 1. Identify purposes that the data could fulfill
Step 2. Identify data that must be kept
Step 3. Identify data that should be kept
Step 4. Weigh up the costs
Step 5. Complete the data appraisal
 
The final step is to weigh the value of the data and any costs still to be incurred, "considering the long-terms aims, the qualities you identified, the time and money already invested in it and the risks of being unable to prepare any ‘must keep’ data for preservation."

Digital Preservation Matters.

t be kept

Step 3. Identify data that should be kept

Step 4. Weigh up the costs

Step 5. Complete the data appraisal

- See more at: http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/how-guides/five-steps-decide-what-data-keep#sthash.bSZLU9IQ.dpuf

Angus Whyte, Published: 31 October 2014

Angus Whyte, Published: 31 October 2014

Angus Whyte, Published: 31 October 2014

2014

Angus Whyte, Published: 31 October