CIRSS Seminar: Peter Darch

Peter Darch

Assistant Professor Peter Darch will give the talk "Library Cultures of Data Curation: Adventures in Astronomy," as part of the Center for Informatics Research in Science and Scholarship (CIRSS) Seminar Series.

Abstract: Research datasets often remain valuable long after their initial production. They may be reused to produce new research findings or to reproduce published results to verify their integrity. However, few scientific projects are funded or managed in ways that ensure data preservation beyond fiscal close. To address the challenge of long-term research data curation, many university libraries are implementing services centered on provision of digital infrastructure for data. This talk presents a study, comprising interviews (n=39) and ethnographic observation, of two university libraries who partnered with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) collaboration to curate a significant astronomy dataset. SDSS was a major astronomy project that made data available to researchers on an unprecedented scale. The data transfer from SDSS to the two libraries was the largest attempted at the time. The paths taken by the two libraries in terms of their approach to curation diverged considerably. Each libraries’ activities afforded different possibilities for dataset reuse. These differences were driven by factors specific to each library, including their strategic objectives for undertaking the transfer and existing infrastructure at their disposal (including technical infrastructure, staff expertise, values and internal culture, and organizational structure). Because these factors vary across libraries and are deep-rooted, library digital curation services for datasets are unlikely to converge as they mature. However, the discrepancies between library services and initial data producer expectations afford remarkable prospects for enabling data use and reuse by and for purposes not known at the outset of data collection.

Questions? Contact Janet Eke

This event is sponsored by CIRSS