Dive Brief:
- While data mining digital archives isn't yet in high demand across the higher education sector, college and university librarians can get a head start on securing rights to digital archives before faculty need them for research purposes.
- Unlimited Priorities which works with libraries and vendors offered 7 tips for librarians, including, look for "permanent access" rights from vendors offering subscriptions to the content, expect researchers to do the actual data mining on the campus servers rather than online, and stay flexible on formats for the data.
- They also recommend pursuing rights to access the database rather than getting a one-time download, signing contracts with vendors for up-front cost-recovery to avoid surprise charges later, and asking for expansive data, including XML and image files as well as OCR data.
Dive Insight:
According to Campus Technology, many librarians have yet to see the promise in securing datasets now.
Many believe the researchers on their campuses are not engaging in any data mining of archival material and don't want to move forward without all of the proper procedures in place. But there is something to be said for getting ahead of the curve.
Colleges and universities may be able to get better prices from vendors before there is major demand and early adopters of any process can contribute to shaping the standards moving forward. And whether or not researchers are asking librarians for the access, there is surely more on-campus demand than some librarians expect.