Implementing a Registry Federation for Materials Science Data Discovery.

As a result of a number of national initiatives, we are seeing rapid growth in the data important to materials science that are available over the web. Consequently, it is becoming increasingly difficult for researchers to learn what data are available and how to access them. To address this problem, the Research Data Alliance (RDA) Working Group for International Materials Science Registries (IMRR) was established to bring together materials science and information technology experts to develop an international federation of registries that can be used for global discovery of data resources for materials science. A resource registry collects high-level metadata descriptions of resources such as data repositories, archives, websites, and services that are useful for data-driven research. By making the collection searchable, it aids scientists in industry, universities, and government laboratories to discover data relevant to their research and work interests. We present the results of our successful piloting of a registry federation for materials science data discovery. In particular, we out a blueprint for creating such a federation that is capable of amassing a global view of all available materials science data, and we enumerate the requirements for the standards that make the registries interoperable within the federation. These standards include a protocol for exchanging resource descriptions and a standard metadata schema for encoding those descriptions. We summarize how we leveraged an existing standard (OAI-PMH) for metadata exchange. Finally, we review the registry software developed to realize the federation and describe the user experience.

Librarians and Scientists Partner to Address Data Management: Taking Collaboration to the Next Level.

PURPOSE: This study looks at the changing way in which the Information Services Office (ISO) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) provides services to NIST scientific and technical staff throughout their research and publishing cycles. These services include the more traditional services of a research library as well as publishing NIST technical reports and The Journal of Research of NIST, and preserving and exhibiting scientific instruments and other artifacts. ISO has always prided itself on having a close relationship with its customers, providing a high level of service, and developing new services to stay in front of NIST researcher needs. Through a concerted, strategic effort since the late 1990s, ISO has developed and promoted relationships with its key customers through its Lab Liaison Program. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: This paper discusses the relationship ISO has developed with the Office of Data and Informatics (ODI), how this relationship was forged, and how this collaboration will serve as a model for working with the other labs and programs at NIST. It will also discuss the risks and opportunities of this new collaborative service model, how ISO positioned itself to become an equal partner with ODI in the exploration of solutions to data management issues, and the benefits of the relationship from ODI's perspective. FINDINGS: A pattern of strategic changes to the services and activities offered by the Lab Liaison program has put ISO in the position to collaborate as peers with researchers at NIST. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: This study provides an overview of how ISO made strategic decisions to incorporate non-traditional services to support data management at NIST.