November 25, 2008 -- Partners in the Data Preservation Alliance for the Social Sciences project plan to continue collaborating after the agreement with the Library of Congress expires in March 2009. Participants met in Washington, DC, on November 10, 2008, to develop a strategy for ongoing interaction.
Attendees included representatives from the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, Harvard-MIT Data Center, Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, Howard W. Odum Institute for Research in Social Science, National Archives and Records Administration, and the Library. Discussion centered on extending three successful partnership activities from the project: building collections, developing technology and sharing infrastructure.
The group noted that working together to identify and acquire datasets was highly effective and that a significant amount of at-risk information had been saved. Everyone agreed that the shared catalog, a Web-based tool that enables anyone to search the holdings of most Data-PASS partners and to download and analyze many publicly accessible studies, was a major accomplishment. The consensus also was that adaptation of the Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe (external link) technology to form a shared preservation network was worthwhile.
Participants discussed ideas about the scope and organizational structure for the collaboration and committed to developing a strategy by early in 2009.
