Preserving electronic data

[Andrew Hopkins]

Hi all,
> 
> >Here is a cautionary tale of data preservation from the UK:
> >
> >	http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/25.44.html#subj7
> 
> 
> Getting into the meat of the link, I find that the problems with the  
> Domesday project came basically from the fact that funding was given  
> to a selection and recording effort, with no thought of funding of the  
> curation of the stored data.

  Echoing Juan's point, this is exactly the issue that I have seen
crop up repeatedly with numerous of the smaller astro survey projects.
Unless there is a dedicated team member who has both the IT skills
and the continuing position (university or otherwise) to maintain
a database long-term, there is a real difficulty in maintaining
long-term viability of data.

  Providing an infrastructure that supports data curation is a vital
component of any virtual observatory effort.

Andrew Hopkins