SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
EXPLORE +
  • About infoDOCKET
  • Academic Libraries on LJ
  • Research on LJ
  • News on LJ
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Libraries
    • Academic Libraries
    • Government Libraries
    • National Libraries
    • Public Libraries
  • Companies (Publishers/Vendors)
    • EBSCO
    • Elsevier
    • Ex Libris
    • Frontiers
    • Gale
    • PLOS
    • Scholastic
  • New Resources
    • Dashboards
    • Data Files
    • Digital Collections
    • Digital Preservation
    • Interactive Tools
    • Maps
    • Other
    • Podcasts
    • Productivity
  • New Research
    • Conference Presentations
    • Journal Articles
    • Lecture
    • New Issue
    • Reports
  • Topics
    • Archives & Special Collections
    • Associations & Organizations
    • Awards
    • Funding
    • Interviews
    • Jobs
    • Management & Leadership
    • News
    • Patrons & Users
    • Preservation
    • Profiles
    • Publishing
    • Roundup
    • Scholarly Communications
      • Open Access

April 30, 2017 by Gary Price

Wolfram Launches Public Data Repository, Private Repositories Coming Soon

April 30, 2017 by Gary Price

Some interesting, cool, and a potentially a very useful new resource/technology fromWolfram, a company many of you know as the provider of Wolfram|Alpha.
From an Blog Post/Introduction/How-To by Founder, Steven Wolfram (About 8600 words):

I’m pleased to announce that as of today [April 20, 2017], the Wolfram Data Repository is officially launched! It’s been a long road. I actually initiated the project a decade ago—but it’s only now, with all sorts of innovations in the Wolfram Language and its symbolic ways of representing data, as well as with the arrival of the Wolfram Cloud, that all the pieces are finally in place to make a true computable data repository that works the way I think it should.
[Clip]
Of course, it’s taken many years and lots of work to make everything this smooth, and to get to the point where all those thousands of different kinds of data are fully integrated into the Wolfram Language—and Wolfram|Alpha.
[Emphasis Ours] But what about other data—say data from some new study or experiment? It’s easy to upload it someplace in some raw form. But the challenge is to make the data actually useful.
And that’s where the new Wolfram Data Repository comes in. Its idea is to leverage everything we’ve done with the Wolfram Language—and Wolfram|Alpha, and the Wolfram Cloud—to make it as easy as possible to make data as broadly usable and computable as possible.
Its idea is to leverage everything we’ve done with the Wolfram Language—and Wolfram|Alpha, and the Wolfram Cloud—to make it as easy as possible to make data as broadly usable and computable as possible.
There are many parts to this. But let me state our basic goal. I want it to be the case that if someone is dealing with data they understand well, then they should be able to prepare that data for the Wolfram Data Repository in as little as 30 minutes—and then have that data be something that other people can readily use and compute with.
[Clip]
[Emphasis Ours] The Wolfram Data Repository that we’re launching today is a public resource, that lives in the public Wolfram Cloud. But we’re also going to be rolling out private Wolfram Data Repositories, that can be run in Enterprise Private Clouds—and indeed inside our own company we’ve already set up several private data repositories, that contain internal data for our company.
[Clip]
The Wolfram Data Repository is primarily intended for the case of definitive data that’s not continually changing. For data that’s constantly flowing in—say from IoT devices—we released last year the Wolfram Data Drop. Both Data Repository and Data Drop are deeply integrated into the Wolfram Language, and through our resource system, there’ll be some variants and combinations coming in the future.
[Clip]
The Wolfram Data Repository—and private versions of it—is basically a powerful, enabling technology for making data available in computable form. And sometimes all one wants to do is to make the data available.
But at least in academic publishing, the main point usually isn’t the data. There’s usually a “story to be told”—and the data is just backup for that story. Of course, having that data backing is really important—and potentially quite transformative. Because when one has the data, in computable form, it’s realistic for people to work with it themselves, reproducing or checking the research, and directly building on it themselves.

2017-04-30_14-21-05
An Item From the Wolfram|Alpha Data Repository (Source: Wolfram|Alpha Blog; April 20, 2017)

Academic Publishers
But, OK, how does the Wolfram Data Repository relate to traditional academic publishing? For our official Wolfram Data Repository we’re going to have definite standards for what we accept—and we’re going to concentrate on data that we think is of general interest or use. We have a whole process for checking the structure of data, and applying software quality assurance methods, as well as expert review, to it.
And, yes, each entry in the Wolfram Data Repository gets a DOI, just like a journal article. But for our official Wolfram Data Repository we’re focused on data—and not the story around it. We don’t see it as our role to check the methods by which the data was obtained, or to decide whether conclusions drawn from it are valid or not.
But given the Wolfram Data Repository, there are lots of new opportunities for data-backed academic journals that do in effect “tell stories”, but now have the infrastructure to back them up with data that can readily be used.

Learn More About the New Wolfram|Alpha Data Repository, Read the Complete Post by Steven Wolfram
Direct to Wolfram Data Repository Web Site
Direct to All Data Currently Available in Wolfram)

Filed under: Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Data Files, News, Open Access, Publishing

SHARE:

About Gary Price

Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com. Gary is also the co-founder of infoDJ an innovation research consultancy supporting corporate product and business model teams with just-in-time fact and insight finding.

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

Job Zone

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Infodocket Posts

Government Publishing Office (GPO) Director Intends to Adopt Task Force Recommendation on a Digital Federal Depository Library Program...

From the FDLP/GPO: The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) Director Hugh Nathanial Halpern has responded to the Feasibility of a Digital Federal Depository Library Program: Report of the GPO Director’s ...

AP: "Boston Symphony Orchestra Plan to Digitize John Williams Concerts Almost Complete"

From the Associated Press: An effort to digitize more than 200 Boston Pops radio broadcasts conducted by John Williams from 1979 until 1991 is almost complete, the Boston Symphony Orchestra ...

Louisiana: "AG Releases Report on 'Sexually-Explicit' Content in Public Libraries"

UPDATE (Feb. 8): We’ve added a link to a statement by the Louisiana Library Association at the bottom of this post. From the Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Louisiana Attorney General Jeff ...

Minnesota: Over St. Paul Mayor’s Objections, Hamline-Midway Library Added to National Register of Historic Places; Wisconsin: Interim Vice...

Association of American Publishers (AAP) Announces Finalists And Category Winners For 2023 PROSE Awards Microsoft Will Let Companies Create Their Own Custom Versions of ChatGPT, Source Says (via CNBC) National ...

Collections: JSTOR is Introducing a New Archive Fee Model Option

From a Letter by Ithaka President Kevin Guthrie: I recently shared the 2023 priorities ITHAKA has set to help provide the infrastructure the academic community needs to support research, teaching, and learning ...

Funding: HathiTrust Receives 5-Year, $1 Million Grant From Mellon Foundation

Here’s the Full Text of HathiTrust Announcement: HathiTrust, a member-based organization hosted by the University of Michigan, has received a 5-year, $1 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to fund ...

Library as Publisher: "UMass Amherst Libraries Announce Publication of Open-Access Peregrine Falcon Curriculum

From UMass Amherst Libraries (Full Text): The University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries are pleased to announce the publication of The UMass Amherst Libraries Falcon Curriculum: An Open Source, Common Core PreK-12 ...

Report From Annenberg/UPenn: "Americans Don’t Understand What Companies Can Do With Their Personal Data — and That’s a...

From the Annenberg School of Communications/U. of Pennsylvania: In a new report, “Americans Can’t Consent to Companies’ Use of Their Data,” researchers asked a nationally representative group of more than ...

Fast Company: "Study: Over 50% of Academics Admit to Pirating Research Papers"

From Fast Company: More than 50% of academics have used piracy websites like Sci-Hub in order to bypass paywalls for research they want to access, according to a recent study published in ...

AI Models Spit Out Photos of Real People and Copyrighted Images; New Web Archives from Columbia University Libraries...

AI Models Spit Out Photos of Real People and Copyrighted Images (via MIT Technology Review) California: Orange Unified School District Reinstates Digital Library After Parent Concerns (via Voice of OC) ...

Journal Article: "Libraries Advancing Health Equity: A Literature Review"

The article linked below (full-text) was recently published Reference Services Review. Title Libraries Advancing Health Equity: A Literature Review Authors Amanda J. Wilson National Library of Medicine Catherine Staley National ...

Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Board: "As Libraries Turn the Page on Bookmobiles, Something is Lost"

From the Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Board: Anyone who has spent time on a bookmobile has learned enough to know nothing withstands the change of time. Still, we lament the slow ...

ADVERTISEMENT

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

Tweets by infoDOCKET

ADVERTISEMENT

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

Primary Sidebar

  • News
  • Reviews+
  • Technology
  • Programs+
  • Design
  • Leadership
  • People
  • COVID-19
  • Advocacy
  • Opinion
  • INFOdocket
  • Job Zone

Reviews+

  • Booklists
  • Prepub Alert
  • Book Pulse
  • Media
  • Readers' Advisory
  • Self-Published Books
  • Review Submissions
  • Review for LJ

Awards

  • Library of the Year
  • Librarian of the Year
  • Movers & Shakers 2022
  • Paralibrarian of the Year
  • Best Small Library
  • Marketer of the Year
  • All Awards Guidelines
  • Community Impact Prize

Resources

  • LJ Index/Star Libraries
  • Research
  • White Papers / Case Studies

Events & PD

  • Online Courses
  • In-Person Events
  • Virtual Events
  • Webcasts
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Media Inquiries
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Submit Features/News
  • Data Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Terms of Sale
  • FAQs
  • Careers at MSI


© 2023 Library Journal. All rights reserved.


© 2022 Library Journal. All rights reserved.