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

Mon Mar 26 22:02:38 UTC 2012

On Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 19:21, Stacy Konkiel <stacy.konkiel at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.

I'm a big fan of librarians, and I agree that the skills and expertise
of librarians may be valuable to a repository.  But: how many FTEs run
arXiv?  Hosting how many papers, increasing at what rate?  How do the
per-FTE numbers for arXiV compare to the IR at your institution?

As for "general long term data storage and preservation", the key
motto for more than a decade has been "to keep it, keep it spinning."
-- 
Nick Barnes, Climate Code Foundation, http://climatecode.org/