Datasets Programme

June 2010

John Kaye – Lead Content Specialist Datasets

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The British Library

� Exists for everyone who wants to do research – for academic, personal, and commercial purposes.

� Covers all subject areas – sciences, technology, medicine, arts, humanities, social sciences…

� Receives a copy of every itempublished in the UK.

� Holds over 150 million items , with 3 million items added each year.

� Used by over 16,000 people each day(on site and online).

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Data and the Digital Landscape

� Seismic measurements taken by a geologist.

� Genetic data collected by a medical researcher.

� A survey of public opinions collected by a sociologist.

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The Foundation for Research

� Data is a crucial component of the scholarly record.

� Re-acquisition may be impossible

� Datasets are essential to the British Library’s mission to advance the World’s knowledge.

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Currently…

There is:� No effective way to link between datasets and article;� No widely used method to identify datasets;� No widely used method to cite datasets.

As a result, datasets are:� Difficult to discover;� Difficult to access;� In danger of being lost.

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Datasets Strategy - Vision

Researchers can discover, access, adapt, reuse and reference datasets in the course of their research

Researchers will be able to track the impact that their datasetshave and receive appropriate credit

The British Library will be an essential component of an interconnected network of service providers

Datasets from all disciplines remain intact, discoverable, useable and vital for future generations

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The Datasets Programme

We envision a future where researchers can:

� Discover, access, reuse, and reference datasets.

� Track the impact of the data that they generate and receive appropriate credit.

Our approach is to:

� Provide a focus for the community to establish needs, requirements and agreement.

� Explore novel technology and creative solutions.

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Projects – DataCite

DataCite is an international consortium which aims to:

� Establish easier access to scientific research data on the Internet

� Increase acceptance of research data as legitimate, citable contributions to the scientific record

� Support data archiving that will permit results to be verified and re-purposed for future study

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Projects – DataCite

Founded on 1 Dec 2009

Now 12 members from 9 different countries

� German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB)

� British Library (BL), UK� ETH Zurich Library, Switzerland� Institute for Scientific and Technical

Information (INIST-CNRS), France� National Technical Information Center

(DTIC), Denmark� TU Delft Library, Netherlands� Canada Institute for Scientific and

Technical Information (CISTI)� Australian National Data Service (ANDS)� California Digital Library (CDL), USA� Purdue University Libraries (PUL), USA� German National Library of Medicine (ZB

MED)� GESIS - Leibniz Institute of Social

Sciences, Germany

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Projects – DataCite

DataCite:

� Supports researchers by enabling them to locate, identify, and cite research datasets with confidence

� Supports data centres by providing workflows and standards for data publication

� Supports publishers by enabling research articles to be linked to the underlying data

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A Key Component for Many Goals

MakeVisible

Find

AccessTrack

Impact

Verify

Reuse

Cite

?Persistent

Identification

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Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) offer a solution

�Mostly widely used identifier for scientific articles

�Researchers, authors, publishers know how to use them

�Put datasets on the same playing field as articles

Connecting an Article with the Underlying Data

DatasetYancheva et al (2007). Analyses on sediment of Lake Maar. PANGAEA.doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.587840

URLs are not persistent

� (e.g. Wren JD: URL decay in MEDLINE- a 4-year follow-up study . Bioinformatics. 2008, Jun 1;24(11):1381-5).

�

�

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The Cost of Visibility

� €0.01 – €1

Harvesting and production

Storage, quality assurance,

and metadata

� €50 – €500(approx 1% of data creation cost)

� €5,000 – €5,000,000

DOI-registration andsearch results

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Projects – Search Our Catalogue

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Social Science Collections and Research Datasets Str ategy

� Content� Continue to build existing content (print and electronic): OECD, World

Bank, UN etc� Enhance links to Economic and Social Data Service: International

Government, Longitudinal, Qualidata� Partnerships

� Key partners: UK Data Archive, ONS, The National Archives� Involved in UK Data Forum; signatory to National Data Strategy for

Economic and Social Data� Resource discovery

� Resource/ user guides – add value to SSCR projects� Dataset Cataloguing� Census 2011 exhibition

� Capacity building� Datasets Content Lead Recruited� Training for Reference Team (Social Science, Science)

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Challenges to Explore

� Long-term preservation of data

� Standards for data citation and metadata

� Methods for assuring quality and integrity of data

� Attribution and credit for data producers

� Effective discovery and accessibility

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John KayeLead Content Specialist – DatasetsSocial Science Collections and ResearchThe British Library96 Euston Road London NW1 2DB

Telephone: 020 7412 7450Email: john.kaye@bl.uk

datasets@bl.uk