46 Association of Research Libraries Research Library Issues 296 2018 likely were informed by many simultaneous projects. For many users of these principles, they might appear to simply be filling a need: to cite one of their sources for a publication. However, citing software serves the community in many ways, such as increasing the recognition of software as a research product, allowing for more representation of various forms of research contribution, and amplifying the vital contribution of developers to the scholarly community. These principles were developed by a working group including researchers from diverse disciplines, information professionals, and tool builders coming together with a common purpose. These different perspectives were necessary for a robust outcome. In order to fully meet the needs of the range of communities, the authors of the FORCE11 citation principles needed to first learn what these needs were. In my experience, individual contributors to the work of supporting open practices in the scientific software ecosystem have multiple motivations and perspectives as to how to support research software in this ecosystem, the different roles that software plays, and how to best support the researchers creating and/or using/re-using software. Implementing the Software Citation Principles remains a complex endeavor although, it is arguably not as complex as implementing good software preservation practices. At least now that this precedent has been established, outreach to researchers about publication and preservation of software can be more easily tied to the system of academic credit. When approaching a researcher as a potential “donor” of their scholarly work to the open science ecosystem, leaning on the citability of software improves the alignment of this conversation with traditional motivations—“Publish or perish “Cite it or it didn’t happen.” Example 2. Radical Collaboration to Preserve Informal Astronomical Communications A few years ago, several astronomers from the blog Astrobites,2 and other social, online, astronomy and astrophysics communities,
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