Abstract

The curation of scientific research data at U.S. universities is a story of enterprising individuals and of incremental progress. A small number of libraries and data centers who see the possibilities of becoming “digital information management centers” are taking entrepreneurial steps to extend beyond their traditional information assets and include managing scientific and scholarly research data. The Georgia Institute of Technology (GT) has had a similar development path toward a data curation program based in its library. This paper will articulate GT’s program development, which the author offers as an experience common in U.S. universities. The main characteristic is a program devoid of top-level mandates and incentives, but rich with independent, “bottom-up” action. The paper will address program antecedents and context, inter-institutional partnerships that advance the library’s curation program, library organizational developments, partnerships with campus research communities, and a proposed model for curation program development. It concludes that despite the clear need for data curation put forth by researchers such as the groups of neuroscientists and bioscientists referenced in this paper, the university experience examined suggests that gathering resources for developing data curation programs at the institutional level is proving to be a quite onerous. However, and in spite of the challenges, some U.S. research universities are beginning to establish perceptible data curation programs.

Highlights

  • The programmatic curation of scientific research data at universities in the United States has been a story of positive, yet incremental progress, and of enterprising individuals and their activities

  • A small number of libraries and data centers who see the possibilities of becoming “digital information management centers” have taken entrepreneurial steps to extend beyond their traditional digital assets and include managing scientific and scholarly research data

  • The Georgia Institute of Technology (GT) has had a similar development path toward a data curation program based in its library

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Summary

Introduction

The programmatic curation of scientific research data at universities in the United States has been a story of positive, yet incremental progress, and of enterprising individuals and their activities. A small number of libraries and data centers who see the possibilities of becoming “digital information management centers” have taken entrepreneurial steps to extend beyond their traditional digital assets and include managing scientific and scholarly research data Some of these universities – Johns Hopkins, University of California-San Diego, University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, Michigan, Cornell, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and some others, are on this path of data curation program development. They have toiled without the benefit of national mandates and high-level university policies to build their programs. It has been the work of individual digital library professionals and academic technologists reaching out to individual faculties and their laboratories and research centers that has made the difference.

Data Curation Antecedents and Context
Partnering with Research Communities
Conclusion
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