The Art of Preserving Scientific Data: Building Collaboration into the Preservation of a Legacy Database

Scientists collect, generate, and analyze data in a variety of forms. Oftentimes, this leads to datasets that have been organized, rendered, and stored by and in different methods, software, and storage locations. Databases are one means by which to organize and retrieve data. The complexity of databases as digital objects presents practical challenges for archivists, data curators, and digital preservationists. In this paper we discuss a collaborative project to assess and develop strategies for preserving and creating access for a scientific database from the veterinary medicine domain that leverages archival, digital preservation, and data curation expertise and resources.