Presenter Information

James L. Mullins, Purdue University

Description

As countries worldwide are coming to terms with establishing a national data policy, the United States is approaching the issue in a piecemeal manner. With numerous federal, state and private agencies in control of funding, it is unlikely that a national policy will emerge for the United States in the near future. Regardless, efforts are moving forward on digital initiatives, including open access to scholarly publications, access to digital data-sets, creation of standards for data-set management, and national repositories for scanned images. Consortiums of research libraries such as the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), Association of Research Libraries (ARL), Coalition of Networked Information (CNI) and the Digital Library Federation (DLF) are facing these issues and assisting with definition of challenges and options. Several not-for-profit agencies are investigating ways in which they can participate, including OCLC, JSTOR, Portico and LOCKSS. Commercial firms such as Google are establishing partnerships with research libraries. Major federal funding agencies including the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health have issued statements about the need for a digital policy. Federal agencies such as the National Archives and the Library of Congress are participating by actively managing massive amounts of data.

Although there is activity on numerous fronts, there is no forum for a nationally concerted effort. While it is unlikely that a national policy on digital management will emerge in the United States, it is likely that within five to ten years a patch-work quilt of digital policies will emerge.

This paper will explore issues faced by the scientific and technical disciplines and the collaborative approaches developing between the research and library communities to meet these challenges.

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Apr 21st, 12:00 AM

A national digital data policy for the United States: to be or not to be?

As countries worldwide are coming to terms with establishing a national data policy, the United States is approaching the issue in a piecemeal manner. With numerous federal, state and private agencies in control of funding, it is unlikely that a national policy will emerge for the United States in the near future. Regardless, efforts are moving forward on digital initiatives, including open access to scholarly publications, access to digital data-sets, creation of standards for data-set management, and national repositories for scanned images. Consortiums of research libraries such as the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), Association of Research Libraries (ARL), Coalition of Networked Information (CNI) and the Digital Library Federation (DLF) are facing these issues and assisting with definition of challenges and options. Several not-for-profit agencies are investigating ways in which they can participate, including OCLC, JSTOR, Portico and LOCKSS. Commercial firms such as Google are establishing partnerships with research libraries. Major federal funding agencies including the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health have issued statements about the need for a digital policy. Federal agencies such as the National Archives and the Library of Congress are participating by actively managing massive amounts of data.

Although there is activity on numerous fronts, there is no forum for a nationally concerted effort. While it is unlikely that a national policy on digital management will emerge in the United States, it is likely that within five to ten years a patch-work quilt of digital policies will emerge.

This paper will explore issues faced by the scientific and technical disciplines and the collaborative approaches developing between the research and library communities to meet these challenges.