Data Services Librarians’ Responsibilities and Perspectives on Research Data Management

This study of data services librarians is part of a series of studies examining the current roles and perspectives on Research Data Management (RDM) services in higher education. Reviewing current best practices provides insights into the role-based responsibilities for RDM services that data services librarians perform, as well as ways to improve and create new services to meet the needs of their respective university communities. Objectives: The objectives of this article are to provide the context of research data services through a review of past studies, explain how they informed this qualitative study, and provide the methods and results of the current study. This study provides an in-depth overview of the overall job responsibilities of data services librarians and as well as their perspectives on RDM through job analyses. Methods: Job analysis interviews provide insight and context to the tasks employees do as described in their own words. Interviews with 10 data services librarians recruited from the top 10 public and top 10 private universities according to the 2020 Best National University Rankings in the US News and World Reports were asked 30 questions concerning their overall job tasks and perspectives on RDM. Five public and five private data services librarians were interviewed. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. The transcriptions were analyzed in NVivo using a grounded theory application of open, axial, and selective coding to generate categories and broad themes based on the responses using synonymous meanings. Results: The results presented here provide the typical job tasks of data services librarians that include locating secondary data, reviewing data management plans (DMPs), conducting outreach, collaborating, and offering RDM training. Fewer data services librarians assisted with data curation or manage an institutional repository. Discussion: The results indicate that there may be different types of data services librarians depending on the mix of responsibilities. Academic librarianship will benefit from further delineation of job titles using tasks while planning, advertising, hiring, and evaluating workers in this emerging area. There remain many other explorations needed to understand the challenges and opportunities for data services librarians related to RDM. Conclusions: This article concludes with a proposed matrix of job tasks that indicates different types of data services librarians to inform further study. Future job descriptions, training, and education will all benefit from differentiating between the many associated research data services roles and with increased focus on research data greater specializations will emerge

The Correlation Between Mercury, Ions, and Weather Conditions At PA-47

Research conducted in the 1970s found that the emissions of SO2 and NOx proved to be a widespread problem through the formation of acid rain. In 2002, PA-47 was established to close an NTN/MDN measurement gap in south-central Pennsylvania, and sample collection conducted by Millersville University (MU) meteorology students has continued uninterrupted ever since. PA-47 is located approximately three kilometers from the MU Weather Information Center where a full suite of meteorological variables are recorded and archived. This research uses ion/Hg analyses and meteorological data from 2004 through 2013 to understand the correlation between the variability observed in the NADP record and the weather conditions that could have contributed to the variability. This period corresponds to the availability of trajectory analyses using the HYSPILT – Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory Mode, which will be employed in this study. Anomalies were found as deviations from the mean concentrations of mercury, sulfate, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sodium, ammonium, and chlorine. This resulted in the isolation of those weeks that exhibited anomalies that were one and two standard deviations outside the mean. The meteorological conditions were found for the anomalies and categorized according to wind direction and time of year, and HYSPLIT was used to obtain back trajectories to determine source regions for this air. Results suggest that weather conditions are well correlated with variability in the weekly ion and mercury data. Our preliminary data show that highest concentrations are found when the wind direction is from the southwest in the summer seasons and in moderate precipitation events that occur after an extended period of dry conditions