Grab a bucket!
It’s raining data!
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/peasap/655111542/
Dorothea Salo
University of Wisconsin
Access 2009

the...
Painting: “Cassandra,” Evelyn de Morgan
Photo: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cassandra1.jpeg
of Open Access

I’ve got nothing against
but the reality was...
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/y2bk/528300692/

... blurrier.
goals?
means?
something for nothing?
fit between content and container?
fit between user needs and system?
and so now, I may be becoming
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jennsstuff/2965783700/

the...
of Data Curation?

What do we know about data?
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kentbye/2053916246/

There’s a lot of data.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/noelzialee/2126153623/

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonevans/1032687817/
Data are there to be interacted with.

Data are wildly diverse in nature...
... as are their technical environments.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28481088@N00/670258156/

Data are already out there.
Photo: NASA (via http://nasaimages.org/), “Multiwavelength M81”

A lot of data are analog...
... but really want to be digital.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbill/3452943573/

Data are project-based.
http://www.exploringthehyper.net/

Data are sloppy.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/midorisyu/2622024163/

Data aren’t standardized.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikewade/3463334719/

Our Big Bucket:
the digital library

Our other Big Bucket:
the institutional repository

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/peasap/655111542/
Impedance mismatches

What do we know about these?
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/schex/193912573/

Carefully built and tended
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/naskapi/index-e.html

Production is a Taylorist’s dream.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/villeneuve53/1808995620/

when it isn’t a Taylorist’s nightmare.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elsie/97542274/

What do we know about these?

We’re caged up
inside our institutions.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/annia316/115439737/

Photo: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black_Ford_Model_T_in_HK.JPG
Any color...

Bring it on; we’ll take anything!
... as long as it’s static and final.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/orblivio/146691405/

Right, anything you’ve got!
... one file at a time.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jetalone/39990302/

Any look and feel...

Any metadata you want!
... as long as it’s key-value pairs.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rattodisabina/2460905893/

Do anything you want...
... as long as it’s “download.”
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/procsilas/306417902/

Content models
Enough said.

So where does all that leave us?
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2162653769/

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonevans/1032687817/
We need bigger, better buckets.

Silos are both necessary
and unacceptable.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jojakeman/2818910104/

We have a lot of modeling to do.
And meta-modeling.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/crobj/727348790/

We have a lot of code to write.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fienna/170559081/

We can’t code or model in isolation.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/naus3a01/240614578/

Fedora is the new world.
But Fedora must change.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mythwhisper/3361907495/

Solr brings it all together
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chantrybee/2911840052/

... the
Vermeer: the Muse Clio, from “The Allegory of Painting”
of Data Curation.

Thank you!
This presentation is available under a Creative
Commons Attribution 3.0 United States license.