The Library currently has the Thomson Reuters Data Citation Index on trial, to provide access to research datasets for UQ staff and researchers. This new index connects researchers to quality data and data sets, across a range of disciplines, from around the world by providing links to data repositories. This makes data more discoverable and accessible by UQ researchers, and can potentially 'speed up the research process'.

The National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) Data Repository contains research datasets sourced from NCEAS funded activities. NCEAS, a cross-disciplinary and collaborative institute, has made the repository publicly available through the Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity (KNB) - a network designed to facilitate ecological and environmental research.

A video created by the Digital Curation Centre, UK offers an interesting overview of research data management. It provides insights into the researchers' role in managing their data, and also identifies some tools and resources available on the Digital Curation Centre website.

Watch the DCC video - Managing Research Data.

Thomson Reuters has announced the release of the Data Citation Index. The index will be hosted on the Web of Knowledge platform, and will become available in late 2012.

CSIRO's Information Management & Technology team has won the 2012 Excellence in eGovernment Awards: Project and Program Management Category. The award was received for their Research Data Service program.

The Awards website, describes the CSIRO Research Data Service (RDS) as follows:

JISC News reports that the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) has "issued the first public appraisal of the Digging into Data Challenge, an international grant programme first funded by JISC, the US National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the US National Science Foundation and the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS), based in the Netherlands, promotes "sustained access to digital research data". DANS actively encourages researchers to archive research data through the online archiving system EASY.

Christine Borgman, of the UCLA Department of Information Studies, has written an interesting in-depth discussion paper on "the conundrum of sharing research data":

Librarians and researchers are becoming increasingly aware of the amount of shared data available online, and the plethora of data repositories available to researchers and the public in many different areas. Rarely though, is there a resource which seeks to simplify our investigation of data repositories and provide a central site to search. Welcome then, to Databib.