10 Survey Results: Executive Summary
Figure 9. Support for Preservation Activities
The survey responses indicate many institutions have either already instigated support or are
holding steady at their current level of support for a number of curation activities. This holding pattern
may be a consequence of resources at hand. The survey data indicate that the more built-in the activity
is to the repository platform, the more likely it is to be applied to data. For example, the results show that
many institutions are applying handles as PIDs for datasets, which we attribute to convenience because
of their widespread presence in IRs. In fact, among the 47 different curation activities scored, assignment
of a PID is the activity with the second most universal current support. The activity with the most
universal support is, not surprisingly, file download. These curation activities with noticeably uniform
levels of support for datasets are frequently a function of the repository technology. Curation activities
that are commonly handled by a system, and therefore easier to scale, are more commonly supported than
activities that require human intervention. Activities that are not readily supported in current repository
systems are more likely to be aspirational. For example, comments on the use of BitCurator explain that
while this tool is used in library systems, it is not necessarily applied to data, yet.
Aspirational Curation Activities
Since support for data curation is a relatively new area for libraries, there are quite a few curation
activities that librarians would like to perform but are unable to. The table below shows the activities
with the largest gap between the number of libraries currently providing it and the number that would
like to.
Activity Currently provide Plan to or would like to provide %Difference
Repository Certification 3 30 91%
Code Review 4 29 88%
Emulation 1 26 96%
Peer Review 1 22 96%
Software Registry 4 23 85%
Deidentification 8 25 76%
Interoperability 11 28 72%
Figure 9. Support for Preservation Activities
The survey responses indicate many institutions have either already instigated support or are
holding steady at their current level of support for a number of curation activities. This holding pattern
may be a consequence of resources at hand. The survey data indicate that the more built-in the activity
is to the repository platform, the more likely it is to be applied to data. For example, the results show that
many institutions are applying handles as PIDs for datasets, which we attribute to convenience because
of their widespread presence in IRs. In fact, among the 47 different curation activities scored, assignment
of a PID is the activity with the second most universal current support. The activity with the most
universal support is, not surprisingly, file download. These curation activities with noticeably uniform
levels of support for datasets are frequently a function of the repository technology. Curation activities
that are commonly handled by a system, and therefore easier to scale, are more commonly supported than
activities that require human intervention. Activities that are not readily supported in current repository
systems are more likely to be aspirational. For example, comments on the use of BitCurator explain that
while this tool is used in library systems, it is not necessarily applied to data, yet.
Aspirational Curation Activities
Since support for data curation is a relatively new area for libraries, there are quite a few curation
activities that librarians would like to perform but are unable to. The table below shows the activities
with the largest gap between the number of libraries currently providing it and the number that would
like to.
Activity Currently provide Plan to or would like to provide %Difference
Repository Certification 3 30 91%
Code Review 4 29 88%
Emulation 1 26 96%
Peer Review 1 22 96%
Software Registry 4 23 85%
Deidentification 8 25 76%
Interoperability 11 28 72%
