Hi Data-nauts, Dataversians, (How do you call folks inhabiting the DataVerse?)
Julian asked:
> You wrote that this supports some of the claims you made in your talk. Could you write more about this?
In my published slides and recorded talk of the 6 Feb 2024 dataverse community call:
> How do you cite data?
> How do you look up cited data now?
> How do you look up cited data 40 years from now?
and proceeded to take the Harvard Kitty citation as suggested by Harvard Data Verse (HDV):
And less than a week later (not 40/50 years later), the (aspirationally) "Persistent Identifier" (aPID) doi:10.7910/DVN/24358/N4FCVS minted by the HDV no longer resolves (see attached screenshot) as if the kitty never existed.
redirected to
which caused a 404
> How To Retrieve This Cat Picture 50 Years From Now?
>
> Likely will not work due to intricate network of dependencies.
Also, note that the signed citation (as proposed in my presentation):
Allows for retrieving the cat picture via their digital fingerprint hash://md5/7d62417b5b689ed91dcd25f10c9c2132 :
while leaving open other known, or as of yet unknown, methods to retrieve published digital data via their signature.
I hope this message helps to support that the case of the lost Harvard Kitty provides evidence to support my claim that our current way of citing (and resolving) digital datasets may need a little work beyond including aPIDs to help carry our digital knowledge into the future.
Curious to hear your thoughts,
-jorrit
PS. I've attached a copy of the Harvard Kitty just to have another place to be able to retrieve the cute 4.5MB cat picture.