Managing the soft issues in e-research: A role for libraries?

Abstract

Within Australia there is a growing interest in e-research and the use of cyberinfrastructure. There is also increasing recognition that the use of cyberinfrastructure is often inhibited, not by technical issues, but by socalled ‘soft’ issues, such as those related to work practices, intellectual property issues, the nature of research collaboration, and institutional imperatives. This paper reports on aspects of DART (Dataset Acquisition, Accessibility and Annotation e-Research Technologies), a current e-research project, specifically issues related to the broader questions of uptake and use of repositories by researchers. The paper concludes by discussing implications for libraries and for the design and promotion of repositories. Copyright 2007 Australian Academic and Research Libraries.