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There is a very nice, short editorial in the new issue of the Scientist
<a href="http://www.the-scientist.com/2005/10/10/8/1" eudora="autourl">http://www.the-scientist.com/2005/10/10/8/1</a>
(registration required) <br>
on Institutional Repositories that mentions DSpace and the importante of research archiving.<br>
This publication is widely read by life scientists, so I thought you might like to be aware of the publicity...<br>
The text is pasted below for convenience<br><br>
MacKenzie<br><br>
<br>
Volume 19 | Issue 19 | Page 8 | Oct. 10, 2005<br>
Why We Need Institutional Repositories<br>
By Richard Gallagher, Editor <br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
The other seven-eighths comes in the shape of institutional repositories, such as MIT's DSpace [<a href="http://www.dspace.org">http://www.dspace.org</a>], 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.<br><br>
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."<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br>
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And, according to an excellent overview from Clifford A. Lynch, Executive Director of the Coalition for Networked Information,<a href="http://www.the-scientist.com/2005/10/10/8/1#B1"><sup>1</a></sup> 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."<br><br>
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.<br>
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<a name="N10099"></a>Perhaps unsurprisingly, new career opportunities and meetings are springing up to service these developments. The first international conference on digital <a name="N10099"></a>curation took place in the United Kingdom at the end of September,<a href="http://www.the-scientist.com/2005/10/10/8/1#B2"><sup>2</a></sup> and the first international biocuration meeting takes place in December.<a href="http://www.the-scientist.com/2005/10/10/8/1#B3"><sup>3</a></sup><a name="N1009E"></a> <br>
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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.<br>
<b><a name="references"></a>References</b><a name="references"></a> <br>
<a name="B1"></a>1. "Institutional Repositories: Essential Infrastructure for Scholarship in the Digital Age" <a href="http://www.arl.org/newsltr/226/ir.html">http://www.arl.org/newsltr/226/ir.html</a><a name="B1"></a> <br>
<a name="B2"></a>2. <a href="http://www.dcc.ac.uk/training/dcc-2005/%A0" eudora="autourl">http://www.dcc.ac.uk/training/dcc-2005/ </a><a name="B2"></a> <br>
<a name="B3"></a>3. <a href="http://tesuque.stanford.edu/biocurator.org/intnlbiocurator.html">http://tesuque.stanford.edu/biocurator.org/intnlbiocurator.html</a><a name="B3"></a> </body>
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