Information Scientists: Data curation and the evolving role of research librarians (Abstract)

Main Author: Harper, Lina Marie
Format: info Proceeding eJournal
Bahasa: eng
Terbitan: , 2020
Subjects:
Online Access: https://zenodo.org/record/3688833
Daftar Isi:
  • Information Scientists: Data curation and the evolving role of research librarians February 14, 2020 Harper, L.M. University of Ottawa http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9846-1806 Abstract These are prolific times for the emerging area of open science. Sharing ethically- and legally-sourced data could potentially mean that data reuse – the apex in the iterative research data management (RDM) lifecycle – could lead to scientific discoveries not yet envisioned. What's more, the era of increased technological capabilities means that STEM, humanities, social science scholars, as well as regular citizens, have the potential to not only capture important scientific data, but to share, reuse, consult, analyse and improve upon it. This paper proposes that academic librarians have the unique skills to be knowledge brokers in the RDM process. Defining data can be a challenge for scholars, but library and information science (LIS) literature characterizes raw data as being either textual, numerical, software-based, multimedia, annotative or process/workflow-based. An essential model in data curation for embedded librarians is the lifecycle, which consists of creating, processing, analyzing, preserving, giving access to and reusing data. The cycle continues when it is reused to create new scientific outputs. As stewards of data & information science experts, I argue that academic librarians should be considered research partners and work with humanities scholars. Beyond the LIS field, the literature suggests that humanities scholars are less likely to be able to identify data in their work, much less have guidance on the data deposit process. Embedding librarians in the research workflow is key towards making science open & knowledge accessible. Scholars should work with librarians in early stages of research to ensure scientific outputs are accessible & remix-able. KW=research data lifecycle, data curation, librarianship, RDM, open science Metadata Intent: My interest in sharing my presentation lies in sharing knowledge across disciplines, increasing the scholarly conversation, and getting different perspectives on my work. Significance of your work to your field: Sharing research data has the potential to reach across disciplines siloes to foster more collaboration. It is the infrastructure needed to prop up open science. Future study design/methods: As part of the proposal above, my methodological design will include structured interviews with data librarians and focus groups and/or surveys with humanities scholars. These methods will connect to a wider scholarly conversation about the reasons for which humanities scholars do or do not deposit and disseminate their data as part of open science movement that has been dominating the information and library science discipline since at least 2002. AU=Harper, L.M. TI=Information Scientists: Data curation and the evolving role of research librarians KW=research data lifecycle, data curation, librarianship, RDM, open science