Roles and responsibilities: Libraries, librarians and data.

Reviews opportunities and challenges for libraries and librarians in the research data arena, with reference to published reports and case studies of emerging practice, supplemented by evidence from university and library websites. Looks at connections between research data management (RDM) and established library roles and responsibilities to explore whether RDM represents an incremental step in professional practice or a paradigm shift in collection development and service delivery requiring fundamental rethinking of roles, responsibilities, and competencies to create “next-generation librarianship,” drawing on experiences and opinions of practitioners in the field. Also discusses professional education and continuing development needs for library engagement with research data, referring particularly to initiatives in the USA

Libraries and the management of research data

A discussion of the role of university libraries in the management of digital research data outputs. Reviews some of the recent history of progress in this area from a UK perspective, with reference to international developments

“making space” in practice and education: Research support services in academic libraries

Design/methodology/approach – The present paper uses data from a recent survey of research support provision by academic libraries in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Ireland, (authors 2013), and provides additional in depth analysis of the textual responses to extend the analysis in the light of forces for change in higher education. The original online questionnaire surveyed current and planned research support in academic libraries, and constraints or support needs related to service developments. It was distributed to 219 institutions in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and Ireland, and obtained 140 valid responses (response rate of 63.9 percent). Results were analyzed using descriptive statistics with thematic categorization and coding for the textual responses

Incorporating Data Literacy into Information Literacy Programs: Core Competencies and Contents

The growing importance of data in society in general and scientific domains in particular, mirrored in the Open Data initiative and in the advent of eScience, requires public, school and academic libraries to contribute to both data and information literacy, as part of their mission to further knowledge and innovation in their respective fields of action. No specific library standards have been proposed to date, however, and most research studies conducted adopt a partial view of data literacy, stressing only the components needed in any given context. The present paper aims to contribute to the advancement of data literacy with the proposal of a set of core competencies and contents that can serve as a framework of reference for its inclusion in libraries' information literacy programs. The various definitions of data literacy are discussed, the coverage of the competencies listed in information literacy standards is described, and the competencies considered in the experiments conducted to date in education and libraries are identified. The conclusion drawn is that the model proposed can favour the development of data literacy support resources and services. Topics for further research are also specified

What Could Possibly Go Wrong? The Impact of Poor Data Management

This chapter highlights the importance of good data management practices by providing examples of problems a researcher may encounter when research data is poorly managed. It provides examples of actual situations when bad data management led to serious problems with data loss, research integrity, and worse. It also provides tips on how data management could have been done differently to encourage a more positive outcome

The Development of an Undergraduate Data Curriculum: A Model for Maximizing Curricular Partnerships and Opportunities

The article provides the motivations and foundations for creating an interdisciplinary program between a Library and Information Science department and a Human-Centered Computing department. The program focuses on data studies and data science concepts, issues, and skill sets. In the paper, we analyze trends in Library and Information Science curricula, the emergence of data-related Library and Information Science curricula, and interdisciplinary data-related curricula. Then, we describe the development of the undergraduate data curriculum and provide the institutional context; discuss collaboration and resource optimization; provide justifications and workforce alignment; and detail the minor, major, and graduate opportunities. Finally, we argue that the proposed program holds the potential to model interdisciplinary, holistic data-centered curriculum development by complimenting Library and Information Science traditions (e.g., information organization, access, and ethics) with scholarly work in data science, specifically data visualization and analytics. There is a significant opportunity for Library and Information Science to add value to data science and analytics curricula, and vice versa

Building professional development opportunities in data services for academic librarians

Research data management represents a significant professional development area for academic librarians –significant for its growing importance to the profession, since researchers are increasingly expected to comply with research data management requirements, and for the extent of competence needed by librarians to support researchers in research data management practices and plans. This article recounts how the Association of College and Research Libraries is fostering professional development opportunities in research data management. The authors describe two key endeavors: (1) the development and deployment of a needs assessment survey, which allowed insight into the types of librarians expressing the most need; and (2) planning and implementation of a pre-conference workshop for ACRL 2015, intended to prototype a future professional development offering. The article concludes by discussing additional assessment that was done following the workshop and how the pre-conference laid the foundation for proposing a ‘‘roadshow’’ for research data management, similar to what the Association of College and Research Libraries sponsors for scholarly communication

Do You Have an Institutional Data Policy? A Review of the Current Landscape of Library Data Services and Institutional Data Policies

INTRODUCTION Many research institutions have developed research data services in their libraries, often in anticipation of or in response to funder policy. However, policies at the institution level are either not well known or nonexistent. METHODS This study reviewed library data services efforts and institutional data policies of 206 American universities, drawn from the July 2014 Carnegie list of universities with “Very High” or “High” research activity designation. Twenty-four different characteristics relating to university type, library data services, policy type, and policy contents were examined. RESULTS The study has uncovered findings surrounding library data services, institutional data policies, and content within the policies. DISCUSSION Overall, there is a general trend toward the development and implementation of data services within the university libraries. Interestingly, just under half of the universities examined had a policy of some sort that either specified or mentioned research data. Many of these were standalone data policies, while others were intellectual property policies that included research data. When data policies were discoverable, not behind a log in, they focused on the definition of research data, data ownership, data retention, and terms surrounding the separation of a researcher from the institution. CONCLUSION By becoming well versed on research data policies, librarians can provide support for researchers by navigating the policies at their institutions, facilitating the activities needed to comply with the requirements of research funders and publishers. This puts academic libraries in a unique position to provide insight and guidance in the development and revisions of institutional data policies. Also published in the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication. This article\u27s data (given here as Additional Files) is available under a CC0 license. The preferred citation for the data is: Briney, Kristin; Goben, Abigail; Zilinski, Lisa, 2015, “Data from: Do You Have an Institutional Data Policy? A Review of the Current Landscape of Library Data Services and Institutional Data Policies”, http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/GAZPAJ, Harvard Datavers