Saving & maintaining MIT Products

Karrie Peterson
April 26, 2016

What happens to the amazing work that is done at MIT by research scientists or grad students in labs, or faculty in grant-funded work? When the funding runs out or the grad students move on, what happens to the work? I'm wondering if there is a way the MIT Libraries can help with supporting these wonderful projects. Research collections increasingly have functionality associated with them - you can do other things besides just look at what's there - so it's a question of not just saving "the stuff" but managing them as working research products or platforms that others can use. And there are also platforms that allow for collaborative work and are great tools for researchers. Is there a role for the Library in taking on the mgmt and preservation of any of these for the duration of their useful lives?

Why do you care about library spaces, collections, and services?: 

Working at the Libraries makes me feel that I am somehow connected with all the research that's happening here, because so much of it has ended up in the Libraries collections! And I believe we can do more to create that sense of connection ...

Research and publishing support
Library collections (physical and digital)