Scholarly Communication Issues

The main product of upstream scientific work is data; with or without metadata, large-scale or small, raw or in context. Upstream involvement would require libraries to develop the staff, the digital storage solutions, the policies and procedural guidelines, and the carefully articulated role needed to successfully incorporate such prepublication research data into existing collections. Because there are known issues with format of data in this context (including preservation tribulations and interoperability concerns to say the least), positioning academic libraries as data repositories in addition to storehouses of finished research reports in the form of journal articles in a time when the future of libraries' role in the present scholarly communication model is already dangerously uncertain is a bold suggestion.

As Gold suggests, libraries might be the best institutions for such an undertaking due to the skills and information-processing framework that libraries already possess. This could be just the opportunity that academic libraries need to secure their place in tomorrow's scholarly communication cycle, and if they were successful the result could be a more deeply rooted, systemic, and stable role than the one held today. Libraries with close ties to the researchers whose work they help organize, promote, and preserve might be in a position to contribute to the blossoming of scientific learning to an even greater extent than libraries in the current publication-based collection model.

Gold identifies some specific liabilities that libraries have as possible custodians of upstream data. Are libraries really prepared to staff and fund such an ambitious undertaking? Do they have a talent pool of individuals with training in both information science and the various scientific fields in which research is taking place, or the ability to develop such a labor force in time? Is there funding for planning and development to allow for a well-designed upstream transition? Is there funding available for the sustenance of an upstream initiative once it is in place? The benefits of providing access to research data through the familiar portal of academic libraries may be significant, but for institutions that are fighting for the funding to maintain their current collections, the bottom line is the bottom line. The money just might not be available.

What will it really take for libraries to manage collections of prepublication data, including raw data and massive datasets? What place would scholarly associations and commercial publishers have if libraries received such prepublication data directly from researchers? Is the possibility of holding research data really not that different from routine library materials processing if each dataset is considered as an archive of sorts for each individual research project? There are more questions than answers at this point, but that's precisely why libraries have such an opportunity to determine their fate.

posted by Maria Sochor