Disappearing repositories -- taking an infrastructure perspective on the long-term availability of research data

TL;DR

This paper investigates the long-term availability of research data by analyzing the shutdown of 6.2% of repositories, highlighting risks, strategies, and the impact on data preservation from an infrastructure perspective.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive analysis of research data repository shutdowns, including causes, strategies to mitigate data loss, and implications for data permanence.

Findings

6.2% of repositories shut down after median 12 years

44% migrated data to other repositories

12% maintained limited access post-shutdown

Abstract

Currently, there is limited research investigating the phenomenon of research data repositories being shut down, and the impact this has on the long-term availability of data. This paper takes an infrastructure perspective on the preservation of research data by using a registry to identify 191 research data repositories that have been closed and presenting information on the shutdown process. The results show that 6.2 % of research data repositories indexed in the registry were shut down. The risks resulting in repository shutdown are varied. The median age of a repository when shutting down is 12 years. Strategies to prevent data loss at the infrastructure level are pursued to varying extent. 44 % of the repositories in the sample migrated data to another repository, and 12 % maintain limited access to their data collection. However, both strategies are not permanent solutions. Finally, the general lack of information on repository shutdown events as well as the effect on the findability of data and the permanence of the scholarly record are discussed.