[no subject]

[Janellyn P Kleiner <jkleiner@lsu.edu>]

The Scientist, Volume 19 | Issue 19 | Page 8 | Oct. 10, 2005, includes
an editorial promoting institutional repositories. The important factor
here is that this is an international publication directed to scientists
-- not publishers, librarians, scholarly assn, etc.

Why We Need Institutional Repositories
By Richard�Gallagher, Editor
                                                                            
It used to be that the record of scientific work was complete when it was
all published in journals. For a select few -- read "Nobel Prize winners"  
-- your lab notebooks and correspondence were of interest. But it's
becoming increasingly clear during the extraordinary information
revolution in the life sciences that everything done in the lab needs to
be captured, from journal club notes to eureka moments to lab parties.
That means it's time for institutional repositories.
                                                                            
                                                                            
Despite rapid explosion of knowledge in the life sciences, the full
promise of digitization, storage and curation is nowhere close to being
fully realized. The large-scale discipline-specific repositories that
quickly became mainstream in information-intense branches such as genomics
and proteomics are just the tip of the iceberg.
                                                                           
The other seven-eighths comes in the shape of institutional repositories,
such as MIT's DSpace [http://www.dspace.org], which provide the most
comprehensive mechanism for digital preservation and dissemination. DSpace
and other wide-ranging digital archives are truly transforming. They will
house research data, journal articles, theses, teaching and learning
materials, information for the general public, symposia and lectures, and
informal accounts of life in the lab. While they are primarily being
developed at universities, there is no reason why customized repositories
shouldn't be introduced in other contexts, including industry.
                                                                            
The introduction to DSpace gives this pep talk: "DSpace captures your data
in any format -- in text, video, audio, and data. It distributes it over
the web. It indexes your work, so users can search and retrieve your
items. It preserves your digital work over the long term. DSpace provides
a way to manage your research materials and publications in a
professionally maintained repository to give them greater visibility and
accessibility over time."
                                                                            
At the moment, many individual scientists or laboratories maintain their
own websites, which vary greatly in quality and currency. In contrast,
data can be routinely uploaded to an institutional repository in a
standard format. Shared software, security, and backup procedures across
laboratories make for a much more useable prospect.
                                                                            
Long-term preservation is another factor. Institutional repositories can
migrate to new formats as they are introduced, ensuring permanence of the
laboratory record. Only research journals have comparable levels of
stewardship, and they accommodate just a fraction of pertinent laboratory
output. The databases would also be more likely than existing journals to
include accessible archives of negative data, which could be revisited
when new information comes to light.
                                                                            
And, according to an excellent overview from Clifford A. Lynch, Executive
Director of the Coalition for Networked Information,1 institutional
repositories "support new practices of scholarship that emphasize data as
an integral part of the record and discourse of scholarship. They can
structure and make effective otherwise diffuse efforts to capture and
disseminate learning and teaching materials, symposia and performances,
and related documentation of the intellectual life of universities."
                                                                            
This new generation of institutional repositories does not compete with
existing databases, it complements and extends them. At the same time, it
reaffirms the position of an institution (in the case of a university) as
a scholarly center and community hub.
                                                                            
Perhaps unsurprisingly, new career opportunities and meetings are          
springing up to service these developments. The first international        
conference on digital curation took place in the United Kingdom at the end 
of September,2 and the first international biocuration meeting takes place 
in December.3                                                              
                                                                            
Forward-thinking life scientists will want to keep up with these and other 
developments in institutional repositories and database curation. We'll be 
sure to keep you posted.                                                   
                                                                            
References                                                                 
 1. "Institutional Repositories: Essential Infrastructure for Scholarship   
 in the Digital Age" http://www.arl.org/newsltr/226/ir.html                 
 2. http://www.dcc.ac.uk/training/dcc-2005/                                 
 3. http://tesuque.stanford.edu/biocurator.org/intnlbiocurator.html         

Jane Kleiner
Associate Dean of Libraries for Collection Services
The LSU Libraries
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
E-Mail: jkleiner@lsu.edu