[open-science] [SCHOLCOMM] Libre open access, copyright, patent law, and, other intellectual property matters

Mon Mar 26 18:21:18 UTC 2012

It is true that a lot of IRs aren't currently equipped to handle some of
the very specific needs of scientists, but a lot of university libraries
ARE uniquely equipped to handle general long term data storage and
preservation. Further to that, they're staffed with librarians who have a
goal of curating and preserving data (not just for current but also future
generations) in mind, and who are really eager to work with researchers.

It seems to me that we should be collaborating to adapt the tools we have
to the needs of scientists (or providing the infrastructure for agile
platform development, like Puneet suggested last week), instead of
constantly reinventing the wheel within our respective silos. As someone
who straddles the IR Librarian/Scientist divide, it confounds me how often
librarians dismiss researchers as not wanting to put in any effort to help
shape the direction of the IR, while at the same time researchers dismiss
librarians as not building tools that they need.

One more point: I'd also disagree that 2 FTE could handle the needs of more
than one repository at a time. In working for repositories that have both
enterprise platforms (BePress) and open source platforms (DSpace), I can
tell you that in both cases it takes a lot of administrative personpower to
manage an IR, in addition to developer hours. Hearing Oya Rieger
(arXiv.org/Cornell Libraries) speak at the RDAP meeting last week about
sustaining arXiv drove this home for me.

Let's not forget that though arXiv was started by a scientist and
originally housed at a national lab, it is through the support of the
Cornell Libraries that it remains alive today.

On Mar 22, 2012 5:21 PM, "Nick Barnes" <nb at climatecode.org> wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 17:12, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> > 2000 FTEs
>
> A striking thought, and (I think) a clear illustration of the folly of
> IRs.  They don't scale.
> --
> Nick Barnes, Climate Code Foundation, http://climatecode.org/
>
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