I agree that this is a problem, but I fear it's not as easy to solve as with traditional libraries that store books. For data to be useful you need a lot of very formal high quality metadata, and that metadata has to be collected by the original researchers as part of their process. So I think there has to be an incentive or mandate that makes researchers collect and document data in a more systematic way. Librarians cannot do it for them.
Comments
I agree that this is a problem, but I fear it's not as easy to solve as with traditional libraries that store books. For data to be useful you need a lot of very formal high quality metadata, and that metadata has to be collected by the original researchers as part of their process. So I think there has to be an incentive or mandate that makes researchers collect and document data in a more systematic way. Librarians cannot do it for them.