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Scientific Information Service�Connecting the CERN Community with global research

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Scientific Information Service�Managing, preserving and disseminating knowledge

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Regularly relying on services and infrastructure provided by or closely collaborating with CERN IT

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Scientific Information Landscape Project�

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Scientific Information Landscape Project�

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Scientific Information Service�Archiving - Rules and Policy�

  • Archiving rules and policy are defined in an Operational Circular: OC3
  • The current rules were written in 1997 ; we have begun updating the policy to appropriately align with CERN’s current organizational and technological climate
    • First steps of the revision process:
        • DRO (Departmental Records Officers) network reviving
        • Understanding current practices in the Departments & Experiments (interviews & survey)
    • Ongoing steps:
        • Benchmark our policy against other similar institutions’ policies
        • Survey for system managers
    • Next steps:
        • Master’s student working through August 2024:
        • Identifying gaps and further ad hoc investigations
        • Reviewing the literature and modern best practices and standards
        • Making recommendations based on previous steps
        • From September 2024:
        • Setting up working groups with relevant stakeholders
        • Parallel work on digital preservation solution with IT
    • Formal CERN review scheduled for 2025

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Scientific Information Service�Archival tools

  • Collections are currently described partly on the CERN Document Server (institutional repository): CERN Archives & Pauli Archives
    • Descriptions of collections at folder level
    • External links to the ISAD(G) descriptions via MARC field 8564: ‘Description of record group’
  • And are described partly on our group website (Drupal):
    • ISAD(G) descriptions in the CERN Archive guide
    • Webpages link back to the CERN Document Server: ‘Catalogue’
  • We are investigating if another tool designed specifically for archival description could be used (e.g. ArchivesSpace) to aggregate all levels of archival descriptions (hierarchical representations of fonds, subfonds, series, subseries, items)
  • ‘Preserve’ tool currently being developed by CERN IT for the long-term preservation of digital records

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Screenshots from CDS (1) and Drupal (2)

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Scientific Information Service�Library�

  • Library uses an ILS developed by CERN IT at CERN based on Invenio.
  • Before 2021, Library collections were in the CERN Document Server (institutional repository).
  • New separate application released in 2021.
  • Include features such as circulation (patrons/loans), physical and digital collection management (e.g. locations, electronic items), records importer, acquisitions, interlibrary loans.
  • New features being developed to improve user experience (e.g. self-checkout & locations of books on CERN Map)

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Scientific Information Service�Curation of CERN research output�

  • INSPIRE
  • CDS

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CERN Document Server

https://cds.cern.ch/

Metadata for scientific content comes mostly from INSPIRE as we take advantage of the already existing harvesting workflows. Cataloguers verify and correct incoming metadata.

Reports on number of annual publications are generated.

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Metadata

INSPIRE is harvesting metadata from:

  • arXiv (https://arxiv.org/)
  • publishers (Springer, IOP etc.)
  • thesis servers

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Literature suggestions can be submitted to INSPIRE manually.

INSPIRE

https://inspirehep.net/

Importing metadata while matching with already existing content, assigning subject classifications, and finally cataloguers curate the metadata.

Content relevant to CERN is exported to CDS.

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INSPIRE�The particle physics information hub

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INSPIRE�Behind the scenes

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Scientific Information Service�Digital repositories strategy

Each project (INSPIRE, SCOAP3 Repository, OA Author Guide, others) requirements are evaluated and the best fitting stack is used. No central CERN or SIS policy regarding the technologies used.

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Current solutions include the following:

  • Invenio Software v2 & v3[1]
  • Django framework[2]
  • Apache Airflow[3] (schedule and monitor workflows)

New collaborations brought different technology stacks:

  • DSpace
  • Archivesspace

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[1] https://inveniosoftware.org/

[2] https://www.djangoproject.com/

[3] https://airflow.apache.org/

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Scientific Information Service�CERN Open Science Infrastructure Community

The scientific Information Service aims at:

  • Supporting the open science community by providing infrastructure and technical expertise �to existing projects.
  • Enabling exchange of information and expertise across open science initiatives.
  • Fostering new initiatives by gathering people working on related or similar projects.
  • Strengthening the community by contributing to existing projects instead of building our owns.

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