Reactor Panel: Supporting the Virtual OrganizationA Role for Libraries?

Medha Devare

Bioinformatics and Life Sciences Librarian Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell University

ARL Fall Forum 2008Reinventing Science Librarianship: Models for the Future

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Virtual Organizations

Albert R. Mann Library

Library contributions?

• Technology choices, tools

• Technical support, guidance

• Subject expertise

• Understanding of research landscape

• Vision – user needs of the future?

Albert R. Mann Library

Library Support for VOs

Cornell University Library

• VIVO: University-wide research and expertise discovery tool

• DataStar: Supports data-sharing among researchers

Albert R. Mann Library

VIVO (http://vivo.cornell.edu)

VIVO

Faculty updates + edits

Directory (HR)

News ServiceEvents

Grants, publications

CoursesConsumers: web pages

Albert R. Mann Library

VIVO (http://vivo.cornell.edu)

biosens*

VIVO (http://vivo.cornell.edu)

VIVO (http://vivo.cornell.edu)

“Harvard scientists span the range of the life, physical, medical, and engineering sciences. Their number and range represent both a strength and a weakness. In principle, there are almost limitless opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration, but our size makes it hard for each investigator to find potential collaborators in the larger community of scholars, especially outside their fields. As a result, collaborations are often the result of chance encounters.”

Enhancing Science and Engineering at HarvardPreliminary Report from the University Planning Committee

for Science and Engineering

Albert R. Mann Library

DataStaR: A Data Staging Repository

Courtesy: Gail Steinhart, Mann Library

…”support collaboration and data sharing among researchers during the research process, …promote publishing or archiving data and high-quality metadata to discipline-specific data centers, and/or to Cornell’s own digital repository.”

Albert R. Mann Library

DataStaR

Courtesy: Gail Steinhart, Mann Library Albert R. Mann Library

Reinventing the library?

• profiles of scientists and groups

• information feeds

• registry of instruments and centers

• registry of data sets

• data from instruments and sensors

“Librarians as middle-ware…facilitating the process of connecting and creating coherence out of information generated within and across disciplines…”

- Rick Luce

Albert R. Mann Library

…your librarian is near…

THANK YOU

Albert R. Mann Library