Sarah Michalak, Director of Marriott Library, University of Utah

142nd ARL Membership Meeting
Program Session III
May 15, 2003

Libraries have developed a well-understood institutional presence bound to an enduring manifestation as physical place and the experiences such places offer. Libraries are also evolving to support changing patterns of research, learning and cultural engagement in recombinant network environments. This poses interesting challenges in the nature and scope of collections and the design of the services that bring them to life in fruitful ways. This is especially so as we look at the growing role in managing and disclosing institutional assets, and at the need to develop new cross-institutional services.

A vision of how this new environment could emerge is found in a recent NSF report that coins the term “cyberinfrastructure ” to connote not only advanced scientific computing but a more comprehensive infrastructure for research and education based upon distributed but federated networks of computers, data and information repositories, on-line instruments, and remote collaborative capabilities, all supporting a “digital science” complementary to the traditional experimental and theoretical science. Cyberinfrastructure embraces a full set of functions, capabilities, and/or services that make it easier, quicker, and less expensive to develop, provision, and operate distributed applications, but also encompass the capture, curation, and preservation of vast data repositories (massive scientific data sets, images, software code, modeling and visualization results). Specific projects built upon cyberinfrastructure are using names such as GRID, E-science communities, and the collaboratory. Important aspects of cyberinfratructure are aligned with librarianship traditions and expertise, but what expanded role should the library serve?

Today’s panel proposes to frame a discussion of expanding library participation in the research community in two ways.

First, how should research libraries contribute to the formulation, development, and operation of cyberinfrastructure? What would it take, for example, for research libraries to offer interoperable, perpetual archives of scientific data that could be integrated, re-used, and mined? Can libraries capture and preserve software artifacts that document scientific results, and remain executable in the distant future If so, how does the library change as an organization and institution and how does it modify its relationship to the research and education communities it serves? David Messerschmitt (UC-Berkeley) will address this topic as he examines Research Library Responses to the NSF Cyberinfrastructure Program.

Secondly, as libraries realign their collections and services to advance research, learning, and cultural engagement, what issues are raised in terms of library as institution, as experience, and as creator of value? Lorcan Dempsey (OCLC) shares his perspective as he looks at Place and Space: Collections and Access in Light of changing Patterns of Research and Learning.