What data release means, and why it matters: an interview with Prof. Christine Borgman

Abstract

Stanford University is going through the difficult and highly fraught process of figuring out a plan for the library of the future. Coming on the heels of the "bookless library," touted as the vision for a new engineering library, a preliminary proposal in 2007 to tear down the seismically unsafe Meyer Library and digitize and house off campus most of its 600,000 volumes produced a cry of protest. The utopian ideal, imposed from above, might have met with less resistance had faculty members been involved in the planning from the start. But as charged responses mounted, the administration announced it would delay razing the library. Last fall a faculty committee of the Academic Council proposed its own plan for rethinking the library to the Faculty Senate, which has accepted it with a call for further rethinking by various university groups of how to put the plan into effect.The new faculty plan is characterized by a key shift in emphasis that is both less charged and more pointed. Rather than envision a "library of the future," it discusses the "future of the library," stressing continuity with an old entity rather than the creation of something brand-new. The distinction exposes what is at stake.

Report of the Research Coordination Network RCN : OceanObsNetwork, facilitating open exchange of data and information

“…The specific policy is: Generally, data submission policies have not been evenly enforced by NSF program managers (e.g. Borgman, 2012) and many Principal Investigators delayed release beyond the two-year limit or sought and received exceptions.…”