Conference Session

Thinking Ahead: Supporting New Technologies in Engineering Libraries

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Bruce Reid, Pennsylvania State University-Wilkes-Barre; Francis Derby, Pennsylvania State University-Lehman

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Libraries

hadsuggested that the campus explore the possibility of having a GIS site in the library. Justificationfor implementing a local GIS support site at this campus focused on the geographically dispersednature of the Penn State Campus Libraries and the limitations of data communications networksto carry large graphical data packets across campuses during laboratory exercises or geospatialresearch activities. Another consideration was the inability of local librarians to provide adequatesupport to users if GIS software and data were operated on a remote system.The library viewed the GIS initiative as an opportunity to potentially expand services andsupport to other disciplines throughout the campus. “Providing GIS Support through the librariesgives all

Conference Session

Scientific Literature and Data: Proliferation, Storage, and Open Access

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Amy Stout, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Anne Graham, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Libraries

even different versions.Issues surrounding data disseminationYet this data is valuable to scientific research. Or is it? How useful is data if it can’t beaccessed and disseminated? Not only must the data be made available, it must bedescribed in such a way that its contents and structure are apparent to the user. Currently,laboratory data is frequently stored on researcher PCs, lab servers or communalrepositories (in the form of reports) like arXiv (http://arxiv.org/). Institutional repositorieslike DSpace (http://www.dspace.org) and Eprints (http://www.eprints.org) are bettersuited to traditional, discrete publications than data sets. Metadata descriptors may help auser understand the contents of a data set, but researchers frequently don’t