I am delighted that a paper titled “Trust in Digital Repositories” co-authored by my OCLC Research colleague, Ixchel Faniel, was given the best conference paper award at the just-concluded International Data Curation Conference in Amsterdam. Okay, she had help. Co-authors are Elizabeth Yakel (University of Michigan School of Information) with Adam Kriesberg (UMSI) and Ayoung Yoon (University of North Carolina School of Information and Library Science).
We can’t link to the paper because it hasn’t been published yet. However you will find the presentation slides embedded in the conference program that I linked to above.
The work described in the presentation looked at whether the actions stipulated as key to the audit and certification of trustworthy digital repositories were actually instrumental in creating trust in the designated community of users. Plain language – we said do these things and you should be trusted. Are those really the things that influence the repository users’ judgement about trustworthiness? And does that judgement differ by disciplinary affiliation?
I’m not going to spoil it. What do you think?
This work was based on the Trustworthy Repositories Audit and Certification checklist that OCLC Research published about five years ago. The Digital Curation Center itself has a nice page on the development of the certification checklist which goes back quite a long way. The Research Libraries Group had a lot to do with its origins thanks to my former colleague, Robin Dale.
It pleases me that this work has bridged organizations and colleagues. Shout out to Robin. Congratulations to Ixchel.
Jim coordinated the OCLC Research office in San Mateo, CA, focusing on relationships with research libraries and work that renovates the library value proposition in the current information environment. He retired in 2016.
