This paper explores the social and technical perceptions of physical and digital formats as they relate to work in the recovery and reuse of scientific data, specifically historical, archival, and defunct data sources. . . . Based on 23 qualitative interviews with practitioners conducting data recovery and reuse, ranging from marine biologists to data librarians, we study how they understand, engage with, and utilize formats within their data curation work. . . . The paper focuses on practitioner perceptions of formats around the following themes: how practitioners’ historical relationships to certain challenging formats inform their ongoing curation practices; the importance of contexts in prioritizing or ignoring formats within scientific curation work; and how formats reveal larger sociotechnical issues.
https://doi.org/10.1002/pra2.798
| Research Data Curation and Management Works |
| Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works |
| Open Access Works |
| Digital Scholarship |
