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Editorial 

Bringing Librarianship to 
E-Science 
In venues where I have been recently, 
the topic of e-science often comes up, 
and comments range widely. Some col-
leagues ask—why should we librarians 
become involved in data management at 
all? Others argue—we have a professional 
responsibility to help meet the challenge 
that scientists face in managing massive 
amounts of data. 

Beginning in the 1950s, scientists 
and engineers were among the fi rst to 
use computers to enhance the research 
process. They moved from research in 
the laboratory to modeling that uses 
algorithms, computer programs, and 
new information technology. The use of 
modeling helped to inform, enhance, and 
speed up the research process. However, 
modeling requires and generates massive 
amounts of data. 

Today, data sets are scatt ered around 
the world in individual researchers’ 
computers, university centers and labs, 
and national and/or disciplinary digital 
repositories. Data sets have been gener-
ated that contain great detail about water 
and other environmental conditions, the 
atmosphere and the heavens, the myster-
ies of plants and the human body, and 
the most elemental, physical particles, 
currently the focus of nanotechnology. 

Numerical data sets have become the 
lifeblood of computational research in 
many scientific and engineering areas. 
Today’s researcher, working indepen-
dently or in a team, determines what 
data are needed to undertake a specific 
computational test. The researcher then 
shares the findings from the test with 
colleagues through prescribed, vetted 
methods—a research journal or a confer-
ence paper. We as librarians have this 

last step –management of 
the formal literature that has 
evolved over the last 150 years – well in 
hand, but not the earlier phases in the life 
cycle of scientific information that have 
become so important today. We should 
learn from our past success. 

During the first half of the nineteenth 
century, researchers shared their findings 
by sending their papers to colleagues in 
order to share findings and receive com-
ments. To facilitate sharing, researchers 
came together and eventually founded pro-
fessional societies including, among others, 
the American Society of Civil Engineers 
(1853), the American Chemical Society 
(1876), the American Society of Mechanical 
Engineers (1880), the Geological Society 
of America (1888), the American Physical 
Society (1899), and the American Astro-
nomical Society (1899). It wasn’t long before 
researchers needed an additional method 
for communicating research results beyond 
the professional meeting. Consequently the 
professional journal was born. The chal-
lenge then became to acquire, organize, 
and preserve these research publications 
for continuing reference and referral. The 
proliferation of these research publications 
created a need for a “repository” to house, 
organize, and provide access. 

Toward the end of the nineteenth cen-
tury, academic and research libraries ac-
cepted responsibility to collect and house 
research publications. Prior to this time, 
academic libraries were generally small, 
housing static collections that primarily 
supported the teaching of the classics. 
So as scientific research grew, academic 
libraries grew as well.  

To help researchers locate material in 
the chaotically growing body of material 

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published by scientists and others, three 
developments occurred at the end of the 
nineteenth and the beginning of the twen-
tieth century. What we call “knowledge 
management” today started as classifi-
cation/subject headings, cataloging, and 
indexing. 

First, through the collaboration of li-
brarians with disciplinary subject special-
ists, the Library of Congress developed 
a classification scheme and a subject-
heading system that brought materials 
related in content together, both on the 
shelf and in the catalog. The result was a 
consistent, uniform, and universal access-
and-retrieval system. (Melville Dewey 
also developed the Decimal Classification 
System, which could be substituted for 
the classification part of the duo.) 

Second, in order to provide a researcher 
or student with a consistent method of 
discovery and access, the Catalogue Code 
was agreed upon in 1908 by the American 
Library Association and the Library Asso-
ciation. Uniform bibliographic description 
ensured that books and journals in library 
collections would be described consis-
tently no matter which library held them. 

The third development came from 
outside libraries. The publishing industry 
responded to the need of researchers for 
ways to locate articles within research 
journals. In the early twentieth century, in-
dexes and abstracts were started, includ-
ing Science Abstracts (1903) and Chemical 
Abstracts (1907). 

So why have I taken us down memory 
lane? In the twenty-first century, the chal-
lenge of data-set management is similar 
to the one faced nearly 150 years ago by 
researchers who wanted to share their 
findings among colleagues. Discover-
ability and availability must come to data 
management to foster today’s scientifi c re-
search. A logical, accepted, intuitive struc-
ture must be developed to facilitate dis-
covery and access to data sets throughout 
the world. Libraries must step up and as-
sume responsibility for archiving data that 
underlies the research article. Those who 
argue that it is not the role of libraries to 

Editorial 213 

archive data used in the scientifi c research 
process should remember this: massive 
quantities of original documents held by 
archives in libraries throughout the world 
are collected, organized, and preserved, 
for the most part as, these documents “raw 
data” until a researcher in the humanities 
or social sciences uses them to answer 
a research question. (Questionable: are 
human readable documents in archives 
really comparable to bits of data? Want 
to modify or revise this statement? How 
does that really differ from the collection 
and use of scientific digital data? 

The National Science Foundation 
(NSF) and the Association of Research 
Libraries (ARL) have recognized the 
role librarians can play in data manage-
ment. For an in-depth discussion of the 
challenges and opportunities, read the 
following publications: 

US National Science Board. Long-Lived 
Digital Data Collections Enabling Research 
and Education in the 21st Century. Septem-
ber 2005. htt p://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2005/ 
nsb0540/nsb0540_1.pdf 

Association of Research Libraries. To 
Stand the Test of Time: Long-term Stewardship 
of Digital Data Sets in Science and Engineering. 
A report to the National Science Foundation 
from the ARL Workshop on New Collaborative 
Relationships: the Role of Academic Libraries in 
the Digital Data Universe. September 26-27, 
2006, Arlington, VA. htt p://www.arl.org/ 
bm~doc/digdatarpt.pdf 

The application of library science prin-
ciples and methodologies, such as catalog-
ing, classification, and resource sharing, can 
be reinterpreted to meet the specifi c needs 
of scientific digital data management and 
described in terms that are more expansive 
and expressive of today’s challenges, such 
as metadata, taxonomy, and open source. In 
this way a network of well-documented 
data sets can be built that will facilitate the 
retrieval of data by researchers, today and 
into the future. Who else is bett er qualified 
than we librarians to bring this about? 

James L. Mullins 
Purdue University 

http:p://www.arl.org