I was excited to be invited to participate in a panel discussion on Data Management and Curation in 21st Century Archives at SAA, given my perspective is not that of an archivist. I’ve been studying data reuse in academic communities and more recently I’ve been examining libraries’ role in e-research and data on their campuses. Given my experiences and interests my goal in participating on the panel was to convince archivists to bring their expertise to the table with an eye toward satisfying, perhaps even delighting, data reusers. I believe revolving conversations about data management and curation in 21st century archives around the needs of data reusers serves to inform the preservation of data’s meaning as well as other archival practices, particularly the partnerships archivists form, the questions they ask, and the activities they pursue.
