Data Curation Workshop: Tips and Tools for Today

The current state of research data is like a disorganized photo collection: a mix of formats scattered across different media without a lot of authority control. That is changing as the need to make data available to researchers across the world is becoming recognized. Researchers know that their data needs to be maintained and made accessible, but often they do not have the time or the inclination to get involved in all of the details. This provides an excellent opportunity for librarians. Data curation is the process of preparing data to be made available in a repository with the goal of making it FAIR: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. This workshop walks attendees through the steps in the process and gives them hands-on experience in data curation activities

Using Qualitative Methods to Supplement Quantitative Research: A Case Study in Evaluating Student Usage of Facilities

Quantitative research is an important tool in understanding library users; quantifiable data is objective and can be processed and analyzed in ways that bring about new insights. Unfortunately, it is better at telling us where and when than it is at telling us the whys. Our library, the Business, Engineering, Science, and Technology library at Miami University, did a headcount study to see how many people were using which rooms at what times of the day and night. There were many things we learned from that data, but in order to flesh it out and make it more of a three-dimensional picture of our users we decided to use methods from ethnography. We ran a survey and then interviewed several of the survey respondents. The result was a “thick description” that allowed us to better understand the motivations behind some of the behavior seen in the quantitative stud

Using Qualitative Methods to Supplement Quantitative Research: A Case Study in Evaluating Student Usage of Facilities * WINNER OF THE 2021 PRACTICAL ACADEMIC LIBRARIANSHIP AWARD *

Quantitative research is an important tool in understanding library users; quantifiable data is objective and can be processed and analyzed in ways that bring about new insights. Unfortunately, it is better at telling us where and when than it is at telling us the whys. Our library, the Business, Engineering, Science, and Technology library at Miami University, did a headcount study to see how many people were using which rooms at what times of the day and night. There were many things we learned from that data, but in order to flesh it out and make it more of a three-dimensional picture of our users we decided to use methods from ethnography. We ran a survey and then interviewed several of the survey respondents. The result was a “thick description” that allowed us to better understand the motivations behind some of the behavior seen in the quantitative study. * WINNER OF THE 2021 PRACTICAL ACADEMIC LIBRARIANSHIP AWARD