First off, congrats on the new position...sounds like it will be challenging. I know that provenance and workflow modeling of scientific datasets is a hot topic of research right now in certain circles. I dug out this link sent to a preservation list I am on concerning a toolkit that just received NSF funding:
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/6951.html Good luck, ~Matt Nathan Vack wrote:
OK, Code4Libbers, here's a question for y'all: I've taken a new job at a brain imaging lab on campus. The details are still to be defined (they haven't had anyone in this position before), but the problems they're trying to solve are things like "Our researchers need to do a bunch of junk in Unix to process their data; that's hard for them" and "Researchers are generating all kinds of versions of data and it's filling the disk and five years later no one knows which copies were used in this publication." In short, I'll be helping researchers collect, catalog, analyze, and archive study data. It's not a 'library' position, but the more I think about it, the more it seems like a place the libraries could excel. Most labs can't afford someone to do this kind of work... but from the grad students I've talked to, the need is HUGE. So, my question: Are research libraries out there doing this kind of work? If not, do you have plans to start? Is Code4Lib still a good place for me to hang out? Cheers, -Nate UW - Madison
-- Matt Cordial Research Programmer University Library Digital Services and Development University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
