Congrès des Professionnels de l‘Information, Montreal, QC, November 2, 2016

Evolving to meet the changing needs of scholars: Academic librarians’ early experiences with research data management programs

Ixchel M. Faniel, PhDResearch Scientistfanieli@oclc.org@imfaniel

Research data management (RDM) programs

“activities and processes…involving the design andcreation of data, storage, security, preservation,retrieval, sharing, and reuse, all taking into accounttechnical capabilities, ethical considerations, legalissues and governance frameworks.”

(Cox and Pinfield, 2014, p. 300)

THE STUDY

Research methodology Data Collection • Individual interviews

(n=10)

• Focus group interviews (n=26)

Data Analysis • 1st cycle coding

– based on interview protocols

– more codes added as necessary

• 2nd cycle of thematic and numerical analysis of influencing factors

A snapshot of the library professionals

50% worked at institutions with 10,000-20,000 full-time student enrollment

86% female69% 10 years of library experience or less

66% had some or a lot of RDM experience53% less than 45 years old

Top 3 RDM services

67% data deposit

61% data management planning

41% data management

THE FINDINGS

Factors influencing librarians’ ability to support researchers RDM needs• Technical resources • Human resources • Researchers’ perceptions of the library• Leadership support• Communication, coordination, and collaboration

Technical resources

“I think that the library with an institutional repository could really lower that threshold and make participation much simpler and hopefully, easier and more robust.”

- Librarian 17

Technical resources“Are we going to look for researchers to write to their grants, data storage costs now? Because as a library, we can't afford to take on these costs…our IT folks say, ‘We can't store that in perpetuity’….”

– Librarian 16

Human resources

“We need someone who would focus on this completely, that that would be their job, not also trying to do reference or trying to integrate with the department or do teaching.”

– Librarian 31

Human resources “…it’s just not scalable. So if we’re successful, we’re in big trouble, because we just don’t have the time, it could be a real time sink. I think it would be really fun, but I wouldn’t be able to do anything else I’m supposed to do.”

– Librarian 01

Human resources

“Our strengths tend to be on the end of it in terms of putting things in and archiving them and maintaining them over a longer period and not that ‘what are you doing with it while you’re using it’…Which is why I think it's more of a ‘pot of gold’…to find people who would have the skills to be providing good consultation for researchers in that area.”

– Librarian 22

Human resources“I find it so interesting and rewarding, and motivating... we all have a job with a range of things,…this one is just one that I particularly enjoy, and so I'll make a point of making time for it….”

– Librarian 04

Researchers’ perceptions of the library

“But it is a challenge to get them to move from thinking of us as a big place with books. And going to this much more abstract concept of data management and preservation, and access to their materials.”

– Librarian 06

Researchers’ perceptions of the library

“I think that maintaining the relevance is a big one… scholarship is changing… [preservation and dissemination of] the data is a way for the library to stay relevant and engaged in scholarship…”

– Librarian 19

Leadership support

“…one of the things that would make it easier is if the leadership were coming from up, higher…if our Research and Sponsored Programs was saying, ‘Hey, the library has put this in place, you will use it.’”

– Librarian 31

Leadership support

“our Dean of Libraries has said, if I’m in my office, I’m not doing my job. So, she is helping to change that culture…I also meet with our Associate Dean…she is very aware of faculty on campus and those political partnerships. She is also there to help me navigate the waters.”

– Librarian 09

Communication, coordination, and collaboration

“I've been working with in collaboration with our new STEM librarian to figure out what path the library can embark upon to assist faculty.”

- Librarian 18

Communication, coordination, and collaboration

“what's like, really key for the role of the subject librarian or liaison librarian is getting to know our communities and perceiving what the need is…For now, at this stage, that might be the most useful thing that we can do.”

- Librarian 05

Communication, coordination, and collaboration

“we're searching for someone to be our point-person for data management,…what the library should be doing is going to be driven partly by how that person communicates with all of the other units on campus to divide up the work.”

- Librarian 22

Communication, coordination, and collaboration “In our consortium, we have different data libraries doing …similar but also different things at different institutions…, and we've been [asking], ‘What are you doing?’ and ‘Hey, we're going to do this, do you want to jump in with us on this and help alleviate costs and burdens?’”

- Librarian 28

Implications• Have institution-wide conversations about

researchers’ needs versus institutional resources

• Pool expertise more broadly to include stakeholders on and off campus

• Library administrator-led approach to outreach and education

©2015 OCLC. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Suggested attribution: This work uses content from Evolving to meet the changing needs of scholars: Academic librarians’ early experiences with research data management programs © OCLC, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Ixchel M. Faniel, PhDResearch Scientistfanieli@oclc.org

@imfaniel