To keep or let go? Historical data sources
I’ve been talking about data ownership in a few different ways and I have also been digging into these wonderful historical data sources. BUT! Where do we draw the line? Let’s be honest that’s another really tough question to answer.
I have proclaimed many times, to many different people/audiences, and in different fora – that I LOVE my historical data! I’ve asked the question to many – OAC is 151 years old now and we’ve been doing research for all those years – Where is all that data? Gone? Hidden? In someone’s basement?
Let me ask you this now… That historical data may be gone – but was there any value to it? Should we go out, find it, and make it accessible? Must ALL data be FAIR?? How does one decide?
I have NO clear answers to any of these questions – but I would love for you all to think about them. Is there truly any value to the data I collected during my BSc(Agr) degree? That was (Oh my! I’m going to say it) 39 years ago!!! Yes I still have the binder with all the rawdata – but should I do something with it? Should I make it FAIR?
How do we determine if there is value? What do we keep and what do we throw away?
These are questions that archivists face everyday – but as a researcher – what do you think? Is the data you collected 10, 15, 20, 40 years ago have value? Should we make it FAIR???
I think you all know how I feel – if I had a magic wand – I would find and make all of our research data FAIR – doesn’t matter the age! For me, in the research context all data has value 🙂
