Invisible Repositories, Re-Use and Reproducible Research

What are the practical implications Merton’s four institutional norms of good scientific research for a digital repository? We analyze past and contemporary practice in the light of the emerging function of repositories in research data management. We conclude that repositories fulfilling this function will heavily re-use existing data in order to support the reproducibility of research results – and will shift focus from ‘shop windows’ to exposing data sources to machines. Thereby, they might become invisible to end-users.