Preserving the outputs of research

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Preserving the outputs of research
Warwick Cathro Assistant Director-General,
Innovation National Library of Australia Archivi
ng Web Resources Conference 9-11 November 2004
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Research outputs in digital form

• Primary outputs (such as data sets, images, video
  files, sound recordings)
• Secondary outputs (such as books, journal
  articles, pre-prints, technical reports,
  conference papers, theses, unpublished papers)

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The issues investigations

• University of California Santa Barbara survey
  (2003)
• UK e-science curation report (2003)
• Canadas National Research Data Archive
  Consultation Needs Assessment Report (2001)
• Clifford Lynchs observations (2003)

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Key issues

• Many academics are unaware of (or underestimate
  the need for) long term preservation of their
  research outputs
• Academics are not equipped to deal with the
  problem
• Universities are not providing support in this
  area
• Research funding bodies place insufficient
  emphasis on this issue
• There are no national-level structures to support
  data retention and curation

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Research data with long term value examples

• Most quality research in the humanities
• Social science research where future time series
  analysis will be beneficial
• Epidemiology
• Ecological studies of particular regions
• Most geoscience and meteorological data

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Institutional repositories

• Only an institutionally based approach can
  provide a comprehensive preservation mechanism
  Clifford Lynch
• The emergence of software tools (such as
  E-prints, DSpace, Fedora)
• The OAIS Reference Model
• Work of OCLC and RLG on Trusted digital
  repositories
• The Australian situation

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National responses the UK

• Digital Curation Centre
• The e-science curation report advocated long term
  funding for data curation
• House of Commons Science and Technology Committee
  report
• Supported institutional repositories
• Proposed incentives
• Drew attention to role of British Library

8
National responses USA

• The NDIIPs announcement of US14.9 million
  funding for eight projects
• US National Science Boards Task Force on
  Long-lived Data Collection (February 2004)

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National responses Australia

• The Systemic Infrastructure Initiative
• Australian Partnership for Sustainable
  Repositories (APSR) Project
• NLA role in this project

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Collaboration

• We need a new set of partnerships Abby Smith
• Cooperation is hard
• The volume, diversity and complexity of digital
  content compels a distributed, collaborative
  approach that enables individual organisations to
  manage content while also sharing best practices
  for preservation Beth Dulabahn

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Collaboration stakeholders

• Academics
• University libraries
• University computing centres (where they exist)
• Discipline-based data centres
• National libraries
• Other institutions with a preservation mission
  and with relevant skills and experience

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Collaboration issues

• How to constructively engage academics in this
  endeavour?
• Is it the role of university libraries to develop
  and support institutional repositories?
• What is the role of the central university IT
  service? What if none exists?
• What are appropriate roles for national libraries?

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Role of university libraries

• No consensus on this issue (UK e-science curation
  report)
• Potential resourcing, skills and attitudinal
  constraints
• University of Sydneys role in APSR (library,
  academics, cross faculty support services)
• Major strategic challenge for university libraries

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Role of national libraries

• Preserve digital resources within the sphere of
  our selection policies
• Establish partnership agreements with other
  organisations to ensure that the information
  landscape is covered
• Offer support and advice to these partners based
  on our preservation skills and experience

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Conclusions

• Our aim is to give researchers a sound
  infrastructure to manage their research outputs
  into the future
• We need recognition and support from government
• We need to build a collaborative framework
  linking researchers, university libraries,
  university computing centres, national libraries
  and other stakeholders