Dealing with Data: Science Librarians’ Participation in Data Management at Association of Research Libraries Institutions

Abstract

As long as empirical research has existed, researchers have been doing “data management” in one form or another. However, funding agency mandates for doing formal data management are relatively recent, and academic libraries’ involvement has been concentrated mainly in the last few years. The National Science Foundation implemented a new mandate in January 2011, requiring researchers to include a data management plan with their proposals for funding. This has prompted many academic libraries to work more actively than before in data management, and science librarians in particular are uniquely poised to step into new roles to meet researchers’ data management needs. This study, a survey of science librarians at institutions affiliated with the Association of Research Libraries, investigates science librarians’ awareness of and involvement in institutional repositories, data repositories, and data management support services at their institutions. The study also explores the roles and responsibilities, both new and traditional, that science librarians have assumed related to data management, and the skills that science librarians believe are necessary to meet the demands of data management work. The results reveal themes of both uncertainty and optimism—uncertainty about the roles of librarians, libraries, and other campus entities; uncertainty about the skills that will be required; but also optimism about applying “traditional” librarian skills to this emerging field of academic librarianship.

Research Data Management Among Life Sciences Faculty: Implications for Library Service

“…Bresnahan and Johnson (2013) reported that although there were training needs and anxiety surrounding provision of data management assistance, librarians at CU Boulder recognized the importance of offering such services through the library. Antell et al (2014) observed that the majority of institutions affiliated with the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) are offering RDM services, and that while science librarians were uncertain of their data management skills they were optimistic about translating traditional librarian skills of "organizing information, applying metadata standards, and providing access to information" (p.558) into RDM service development. The ACRL Research Planning and Review Committee (2014) stated that "(i)ncreased emphasis on open data, data-plan management, and 'big data' research are creating the impetus for academic institutions…to develop and deploy new initiatives, service units, and resources to meet scholarly needs at various stages of the research process" (p. 294), and many libraries have already begun offering or planning these services.…”

“…Despite the widespread belief that librarians, if given the opportunity to strengthen their familiarity and comfort with best practices, are well positioned to assist with research data management (RDM) (Antell, Bales Foote, Turner, & Shults, 2014;Brown, Wolski, & Richardson, 2015;Tenopir, Sandusky, Allard, & Birch, 2013), implementing sustainable and scalable service models is difficult. The most fundamental, but not the only, barrier to service stems from confusion surrounding the definition of data management and its component parts (Carlson, 2012;Hoy, 2014).…”

“…Many librarians report a need for additional training to gain knowledge and confidence in providing RDM assistance (Antell et al, 2014;Bresnahan & Johnson, 2013), and approaches to service implementation are widely shared (Tenopir, Birch, & Allard, 2012). However, the coauthor, who serves as the Research Data Management and Reproducibility Librarian at Author Institution, has expertise and comfort with best practices surrounding data management, and is already available to provide these services.…”

An Exploratory Sequential Mixed Methods Approach to Understanding Researchers’ Data Management Practices at UVM: Integrated Findings to Develop Research Data Services

“…These numbers changed little from an earlier study, completed in 2011, that assessed the percentage of libraries that currently offer, plan to offer, or do not plan to offer RDS, and which revealed that there was little or no demand for RDS from patrons at many institutions (Tenopir, Birch, and Allard 2012). Conversely, a separate study of science librarians affiliated with ARL libraries found that approximately 60% of respondents indicated that their university provided data management assistance, and approximately 20% were planning such services (Antell et al 2014).…”

Analyzing Data Management Plans: Where Librarians Can Make a Difference

“…Antell et al surveyed science librarians in 2014 and found that 15.8% of respondents had the job duty described as "help researchers develop data management plans." 13 Additionally, 15.1% indicated that they "'promote, publicize, or advocate' the library's data management services." 13 When asked what skills are needed, 4.2% of the survey respondents indicated that "experience assisting with data management plans" would be useful, but only 2% thought they had those skills or were working on acquiring them.…”