Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Total student enrollment at Princeton as of fall 2022 was 8,705, with 5,548 undergraduates and 3,157 graduate students. The student-to-faculty ratio is 5:1.
Since 2019, Princeton University Library has been a key partner with researchers whose methods include citizen science, open data, and other open-research practices. With respect to citizen science, Princeton University Library believes academic libraries, as intellectual hubs that serve a wide variety of users from scientists to laypersons, have the potential to bridge the gap between the researchers initiating citizen science projects and participants who may be members of the public or from the university community. For open scholarship more broadly, Princeton University Library has partnered with other groups on campus to develop tools, training, infrastructures, and services that enable researchers to share their research outputs openly, from traditional outputs published through open access to open data and other forms of scholarship.
Princeton University Library has co-hosted citizen science events, such as megathons—or “mega catching marathons”—in which participants from around the world classify objects synchronously. Examples of these events and their impacts include:
- Viewing movies from the brains of mice to advance research in Alzheimer’s disease by identifying blood vessels as flowing or stalled
- Classifying exotic animals in camera-trap footage from Africa, which helped scientists from around the world collect data and organize information about the animals
To support open scholarship more broadly, Princeton University Library has invested in staffing and infrastructure to support the current and anticipated needs for an open scholarly ecosystem, including a new data repository architecture and infrastructure, a partnership initiative with Princeton Research Computing to center metadata in the workflows of research data storage, and an open publication service. Our approach leverages the library’s role as an organizing and managing body to encourage the incorporation of responsible conduct and good scholarly practice into open scholarship projects, including citizen science.
Overall, these initiatives build on Princeton University’s core mission to pursue research and education for significant and lasting impact in service to the nation and the world.
For additional information about Accelerating Social Impact Research: Libraries at the Intersection of Openness and Community-Engaged Scholarship, please read the ARL report or view additional institutional profiles.
