Researcher-Library Collaborations: Data Repositories as a Service for Researchers

Abstract

INTRODUCTION New interest has arisen in organizing, preserving, and sharing the raw materials—the data and metadata—that undergird the published products of research. Library and information scientists have valuable expertise to bring to bear in the effort to create larger, more diverse, and more widely used data repositories. However, for libraries to be maximally successful in providing the research data management and preservation services required of a successful data repository, librarians must work closely with researchers and learn about their data management workflows. DESCRIPTION OF SERVICES Databrary is a data repository that is closely linked to the needs of a specific scholarly community—researchers who use video as a main source of data to study child development and learning. The project’s success to date is a result of its focus on community outreach and providing services for scholarly communication, engaging institutional partners, offering services for data curation with the guidance of closely involved information professionals, and the creation of a strong technical infrastructure. NEXT STEPS Databrary plans to improve its curation tools that allow researchers to deposit their own data, enhance the user-facing feature set, increase integration with library systems, and implement strategies for long-term sustainability.