Infrastructure

In the era of research infrastructures and big data, sophisticated data management practices are becoming essential building blocks of successful science. Most practices follow a data-centric approach, which does not take into account the processes that created, analysed and presented the data. This fact limits the possibilities for reliable verification of results. Furthermore, it does not guarantee the reuse of research, which is one of the key aspects of credible data-driven science.

In this installment of the Content Matters interview series of the National Digital Stewardship Alliance Content Working Group we’re featuring an interview with Diane Papineau, a geographic information systems analyst at the Montana State Library.
In addition to a traditional role of supporting public libraries and collecting state publications, the Montana State Library (MSL) hosts the Natural Resource Information System (NRIS), which is staffed by GIS Analysts.

We describe a digital object and repository architecture for storing and disseminating digital library content. The key features of the architecture are: (1) support for heterogeneous data types; (2) accommodation of new types as they emerge; (3) aggregation of mixed, possibly distributed, data into complex objects; (4) the ability to specify multiple content disseminations of these objects; and (5) the ability to associate rights management schemes with these disseminations.