Archival Practices for Scientific Records and Data

An Introductory Overview

Abstract

Since the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, a large amount of radiation monitoring data has been generated or collected by individuals and organizations of different kinds and with varied intentions. While those data are all unique and of significant value for all sorts of scientific, medical and historical purposes,there may be a growing threat of their loss due to the neglect of necessary archival measures. Japan Association for Archival Science（JSAS）in partnership with The Physical Society of Japan（JPS）and with assistance from the National Diet Library（NDL），has started a project to seek a strategy for archiving the radiation monitoring data, although the majority of JSAS archivists are not well acquainted with scientific data archiving. This essay gives a brief introduction to the basic ideas in scientific data archiving so that JSAS archivists will be better informed about the subject and ready to be involved in the project.