DARELUX
Scholarly Communication
Status: Completed
Objective
DARELUX (Data Archiving River Environment LUXembourg) provides permanent storage of hydrological measurements collected in a river catchment area in Luxembourg. The measurements are stored in an archive along with the associated analysis results and publications. The repository ensures long-term accessibility of the scientific data and allows the analyses to be reproduced.
Deliverables
A repository has been set up. Important pioneering work has been carried out on the permanent storage of scientific data. Consideration of options for systematic continuation of services for repositories of this kind has led to a business plan for setting up the Data Centre of the three technical universities.
The project is based on the results of a previous SURF project, E-Archive. When that project started, hardly any work had been done on the permanent storage of scientific data. The model that was developed has now been subjected to practical testing in DARELUX. Major advances have been achieved, particularly in developing various approaches (different types of archives, with differing dynamic levels) and in defining different user groups. The DARE project has also led to the library at Delft University of Technology – together with those at two other Dutch technical universities – deciding to provide a service for permanent storage. For the humanities and social sciences, data storage facilities are provided by DANS (Data Archiving and Networked Services). DANS is a KNAW institute (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) that is also supported by NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research). It officially began work on 1 June 2006. The Royal Library in The Hague – the national library of the Netherlands – also provides permanent access to scholarly publications in digital form. For science subjects, however, data storage has only been organised to a limited extent. The libraries of the technical universities of Eindhoven, Twente, and Delft have therefore set up an initiative to fill the gap: the 3TU Data Centre. The aim is to guarantee permanent access to the whole field of Dutch technical and scientific literature.
Contact
For more information, please contact Maria Heijne (m.a.m.heijne@tudelft.nl).