TAIR as a Model for Database Sustainability

The long-term stable support of databases that serve the research community is an ongoing challenge.  Traditional grant funding is an excellent mechanism for developing new resources but has drawbacks as a long-term support mechanism. However, persistence and continued availability of important datasets is an essential underpinning of scientific progress.  We have pioneered a new approach to this problem that combines a nonprofit approach with subscriber support, and have successfully transitioned the TAIR database to community funding at a level that can sustain the resource for the long term. The next challenge is building an infrastructure that can extend to other databases that wish to make the same transition.