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6023 results in Facet Publishing

Page 130 of 302

  • 1 - The care of Special Collections

  • Alison Cullingford
  • Book:
    The Special Collections Handbook
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2016, pp 1-24

  • Summary

    Introducing collections care

    As stated in the Introduction, the care of collections is the basis of Special Collections work. Librarians need to decide what to preserve and why, and to what extent the information and the artefact can be separated. The choices made in caring for collections have long-term, often irreversible effects.

    This chapter will:

  • Outline threats to collections and how to manage them. Threats include the physical composition of the objects themselves, environmental factors, pests and mould, buildings and storage, and handling.

  • Explore conservation and the role of the conservator.

  • Introduce preservation reformatting and the challenges of digital preservation.

  • Discuss how to bring all these ideas together in a collections care policy.

    • A note on terminology

    The terminology of collections care can be confusing. I follow the definitions used in the current standard for cultural collections management, PAS 197 (British Standards Institution, 2009):

  • • Collections care: ‘range of activities intended to safeguard a collection. These activities can include organizational policies, security, storage, cleaning, maintenance, handling, scientific investigation, environmental monitoring and control, exhibitions and loans, conservation, provision of surrogates, and emergency planning.’ Collections care is also known as preservation and preventive conservation.

  • • Conservation: ‘interventive techniques applied to an item to achieve chemical and physical stabilization for the purpose of extending the useful life of the item to ensure its continued availability.’ Also known as interventive conservation and remedial conservation.

  • • Restoration is not defined in PAS 197: it usually implies an approach that aims to recreate an item as it was in a previous period.

    • A note on standards

    Various guidelines and standards have been developed to assist organizations to provide appropriate levels of care for heritage materials. The key standards for UK libraries in 2016 are:

  • • PD 5454:2012 (British Standards Institution, 2012a) replaces BS 5454:2000 for storage and exhibition.

  • • PAS 198 (British Standards Institution, 2012b) on environment.

  • • PAS 197 (British Standards Institution, 2009) including collections care.

  • • The Archive Accreditation Standard (The National Archives, 2014) and the longestablished Museums Accreditation standard follow the structure of PAS 197. Archive Accreditation replaces the old Standard for Record Repositories.

  • • BS 4971:2002 (British Standards Institution, 2002) covering conservation work.

  • 10 - Widening access to Special Collections

  • Alison Cullingford
  • Book:
    The Special Collections Handbook
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2016, pp 193-214

  • Summary

    Introduction

    This chapter looks at widening access to Special Collections beyond the standard services to traditional groups of users outlined in Chapter 8, reaching out to market Special Collections to new audiences. It should be seen in light of the ideas and techniques presented in Chapter 9. It will:

  • Explain why Special Collections are trying to widen access.

  • Discuss issues and obstacles in widening access.

  • Look in detail at Special Collections work with two groups of non-traditional users: undergraduates and school-age children.

  • Introduce other possibilities for widening access.

    • Widening access is often known as outreach. It is becoming more significant in Special Collections work: libraries are recognizing how valuable Special Collections can be in making their organization distinctive and helping with lifelong learning. Other terms associated with widening access are audience development, ‘identifying who you want to engage with your heritage project, and taking proactive steps to attract and retain their interest’ (Heritage Lottery Fund website, www.hlf.org.uk) and community engagement, in which universities and other organizations try to work more closely with local people.

    Why build new audiences?

    Special Collections often lack time and resources to manage existing readers, not to mention preservation problems, hidden collections and other pressures. The activities in this chapter are, as all commentators observe, highly labour-intensive. So why are librarians keen to reach out to new audiences?

    A proactive way to develop service

    The Special Collections world is changing, thanks to mass digitization of older texts. Librarians cannot assume that the same groups will continue to wish to access collections in the same way. Rather than watching traditional use decline, why not seek new audiences and explore new ways of using collections?

    Advocacy

    Chapter 12 explains that Special Collections must demonstrate their value to their institution by showing how they contribute to its mission:

  • Special Collections in universities can do this by emphasizing their work with students, increasingly central to their parent organization's mission.

  • Special Collections can offer any parent organization a way to reach beyond their walls into communities, thanks to their range of compelling materials and stories. Not forgetting, of course, that the more people who understand and appreciate Special Collections, the more support libraries will receive for their work in future.

  • 6 - Digitization and digital libraries in Special Collections

  • Alison Cullingford
  • Book:
    The Special Collections Handbook
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2016, pp 113-126

  • Summary

    Introduction

    Librarians are advised not to think of digital as an exception: the creation and management of digital collections are now business as usual for most services. Digital issues are therefore covered as they arise: find them via this book's index. We already discussed the preservation and history of digital objects. This chapter discusses some further aspects of digital collecting which do merit separate consideration.

  • Digitization: what and why.

  • Managing digitization projects.

  • Considering digital storage and access systems: the digital library and some alternatives.

    • This chapter concentrates on the management of digitization and digital files, rather than on technical and systems concerns, on the assumption that most libraries will have IT experts on their staff. For those who need it, guidance on the technical side can be found in ‘Further reading’.

    Managing digitization

    Digitization can be defined as the representation of an analogue original in a digital format (i.e. binary code). This process is also known as digitizing and, sometimes, digitalization (though this term is usually used to describe the computerization of social life or technologies). Digitized objects, unlike born-digital ones, therefore have an analogue counterpart.

    From the perspective of many users, the act of image capture or ‘scanning it in’ is a simple one; why therefore are more collections not available in digital form? From the perspective of the library, however, image capture itself involves a range of choices, and is only one facet of ‘digitization’ as a management process.

    Why digitize?

    Digitizing collections can bring many benefits:

  • • Improved collections care. Digital versions can act as surrogates, taking the pressure off fragile originals.

  • • Meeting user demand. Users increasingly expect content to be digital.

  • • Increased public access at scale. If made available online, digital collections can reach people worldwide, easily, through their phones or devices.

  • • Educational use. For instance, they can be packaged as learning objects or used as part of an augmented reality programme (see Chapters 9 and 10).

  • • Marketing improvement. Most of the activities in Chapter 9 are made easier with the ready availability of digitized material.

  • 5 - Research data management service and policy: working across your institution

  • Robin Rice, John Southall
  • Book:
    The Data Librarian's Handbook
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2016, pp 67-86

  • Summary

    Librarians and RDM

    Many data librarians working today are solo librarians or part of a small team. However, we would argue that for those data librarians who have become involved in work supporting research data management (RDM), working alone is not an option. There are too many components involved in institutional RDM support for one professional to be able to do it all. One parallel trend to employing data librarians in the UK is for academic libraries to hire an ‘RDM services coordinator’. These may be the only full-time professional working on RDM, and their title recognizes the need to leverage input from service managers across the library and computing service, and beyond. In some cases these new posts have been based in the research office, rather than the library. In other cases support has been cobbled together from parts of people's jobs across libraries, research offices and IT departments. A DCC survey from 2015 found that ‘At least two-thirds of [52 responding UK-based] institutions currently have less than 1 [full-time equivalent staff] allocated to RDM’ with only those receiving the top third of research income expected to have more (almost three on average) by May 2016 (Whyte, 2015, 3).

    For those without the luxury of being in a dedicated post, taking on data support is often a new job requirement from which none of the previous duties have been removed. While this may cause stress and even resentment for some, it really should be seen as an intellectual challenge and an opportunity to work with new researchers and colleagues outside one's normal circles. Even those in a dedicated data-related post who may be accustomed to serving a specific research community are being challenged to come out of their silos and combine forces with others across campus to join RDM committees and do some collective problem-solving. People skills or communication skills have never been more needed in the data support profession.

    Similarly, it may be observed that there are two types of research institutions: those that embrace the RDM challenge proactively, and those that wait for funders’ requirements to threaten research income or other external consequences (such as a scandal involving fraud, confidentiality breach or failure to comply with a freedom of information [FOI] request) before reluctantly taking action.

  • Appendix A - The Special Collections reference shelf

  • Alison Cullingford
  • Book:
    The Special Collections Handbook
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2016, pp 271-274

  • Summary

    Every Special Collections librarian needs to be aware of the following core reference resources. They are invaluable for helping users, and also for management activities, for example assessing rarity for acquisitions or insurance or assistance with cataloguing. Many are short-title catalogues (STCs), which abbreviate the very long titles characteristic of early printed books. The resources are freely available online unless otherwise noted. See the Chapter 3 ‘Further reading’ for more resources on these subjects.

    Union catalogues

    These are vast catalogues combining records from many libraries and archives:

  • WorldCat. Managed by OCLC, records for 2 billion items from over 70,000 national, academic and public libraries worldwide. Particularly useful for accessing Special Collections in North American universities, www.worldcat.org.

  • COPAC. A Jisc service, offering 40 million catalogue records from 90 UK and Irish research libraries, very rich in Special Collections records, http://copac.jisc.ac.uk.

  • Karlsrüher Virtueller Katalog (KVK). Via the Karlsrüher Institut für Technologie, 500 million records from libraries in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and worldwide, useful for European early printed books, https://kvk.bibliothek.kit.edu.

  • SUNCAT. Delivered by Edina on behalf of Jisc, this catalogue brings together records for serials from UK research libraries. Records for historic journals and periodicals can be difficult to track down on union catalogues, so using SUNCAT can make research simpler, www.suncat.ac.uk.

    • Archive gateways

    There are several databases which bring together finding aids for archival collections:

  • Archives Hub. Managed by Jisc, the Hub contains collection-level and multi-level descriptions of archives held in UK universities and colleges, archiveshub.ac.uk.

  • Discovery. Discovery is the catalogue of The National Archives; it also hosts descriptions of archives held in other institutions – over 32 million records! It is particularly valuable for researching material held by record offices. Discovery incorporates the records created by the Access 2 Archives project in the early 2000s, http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk.

  • Archive Grid, an OCLC project which brings together 4 million archival records, mostly harvested from WorldCat. Useful coverage of US archives, https://beta.worldcat.org/archivegrid.

  • Archives Portal Europe. Records of archives across Europe from over 6000 organizations, generally managed and input at country level, www.archivesportaleurope.net.

  • 4 - Building a data collection

  • Robin Rice, John Southall
  • Book:
    The Data Librarian's Handbook
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2016, pp 53-66

  • Summary

    Policy and data

    A task faced by many data librarians is the acquisition and development of digital resources in the context of a larger library of printed material. This can be done through adoption of a range of procedures but there are also benefits in having a formal written policy. A formal description acknowledges that a policy fulfils many functions beyond being merely a tool for choosing materials. In addition to describing current collections, it encourages ‘the staff involved to (re)consider the aims and objectives of the organization, both long and short term, and the priorities to be attached to different activities. It assists with budgeting, serves as communication channel within a library and between the library and outside constituents, supports co-operative collection development, prevents censorship, and assists in overall collection management activities’ (IFLA, 2001).

    Development of a formal policy is recommended and it ought to encapsulate the range of activities to be undertaken by the data librarian. It will involve selection of materials of course but will equally build on the relationships with readers within a department and library, mechanisms for promoting resources and receiving feedback, and raising the profile of your work within the larger organization. The policy needs to acknowledge that collection development can be different where data are concerned.

    Data as a resource to be acquired

    What are the various issues to consider? Many traditional topics to do with library print collections apply equally to those of us who are building up digital research data collections. Some institutions may regard the latter as more the responsibility of IT services or archival holdings if a digitization project has been involved, but the continuing evolution of academic libraries makes it important to stake a claim for responsibility in this area. In Data Basics, a seminal monograph on developing data libraries and support services, Geraci, Humphrey and Jacobs argue, ‘The role of the library is to Select, Acquire, Organize, and Preserve information, and to provide Access to and Services for that information. Although some librarians question these roles in the digital world … these are the activities that define a library. If an organization fulfils all these roles … what would we call it but “a library”?’ (Geraci, Humphrey and Jacobs, 2012, 65).

  • 2 - What is different about data?

  • Robin Rice, John Southall
  • Book:
    The Data Librarian's Handbook
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2016, pp 19-34

  • Summary

    Attitudes and pre-conceptions

    The daily work of the data librarian can be quite similar to that of our more traditional named academic librarians. It can involve working within library systems, acquiring resources and developing working relationships that allow you to promote the role of your library. The fact we work with research data alongside periodicals, books and other publications should not make that much of a difference to how our work is seen but for a variety of reasons it does. The word ‘data’ itself is off-putting to some traditional academic librarians and researchers and a cause of some anxiety. For some it is because it seems to belong to other disciplines and have little relationship with their own work. Others see it as being such a common word as to be almost indistinguishable from ‘information’.

    A good example of these different perspectives can be seen in the social sciences. Researchers that use survey techniques and questionnaires create a body of data that can be recorded, analysed, summarized in the form of statistics and, in due course, form the basis of publications. They are clear that this is their dataset and appreciate its role in enabling analysis. It is numerical, quantitative and quite obviously ‘data’. On the other hand researchers using qualitative techniques such as semi-structured interviews or focus groups create a body of work that includes audio transcriptions as well as perhaps audio recordings or photographs. This material is just as crucial in informing analysis but within that tradition it is routinely not perceived or referred to as ‘data’. A similar situation can be seen in many disciplines within the humanities (Ward et al., 2011), which focus on working with ‘primary materials’. Within visual art research a similar resistance has been noted so that there is, ‘An additional task to those working towards the same ends in other disciplines: the translation of scientific RDM concepts into language meaningful to those working in creative arts disciplines’ (Guy, Donnelly and Molloy, 2013, 101).

    Data librarians need to be aware of these nuances if they are to be successful in promoting RDM. Reflection on the attitudes you encounter and adopting the terminology of different user communities will be important in offering effective support from your library during a research project.

  • Afterword: Special Collections futures

  • Alison Cullingford
  • Book:
    The Special Collections Handbook
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2016, pp 267-270

  • Summary

    These are indeed challenging times for Special Collections. Special Collections contain a wealth of wonderful materials and librarians who care about bringing those collections and people together. This is shown by the many examples of good practice in this book (and I could have included so many more). But services are often underfunded, undervalued, under threat, beset with hidden collections and other inherited problems. A ‘perfect storm’ of pressure on public sector and higher education resources and the perception that everything is or soon will be digitized means that Special Collections must defend their very existence.

    However, there are also tremendous opportunities. I hope this book will help librarians to see the power of new technologies to make collections available in ways unimaginable before, to make connections, to share ideas and to show their value to their host organizations. In a world flattened and homogenized by digital technologies, there is a demand for the power of objects and fresh narratives that Special Collections can offer.

    Moving beyond the next few years, what of the future for Special Collections? Are they, or the library, dying, as is often predicted, thanks to the digital age?

    Many possible futures exist for Special Collections and their parent libraries, depending on developments in the ‘ecosystems’ of which they are part. The study of ‘scenarios’ can stimulate Special Collections librarians to reflect on likely developments and build strategies to shape and respond to these possibilities. See for example:

  • • Libraries of the Future: UK university libraries in 2050

  • • Staley and Malenfant (2010): trends affecting ACRL libraries in 2025

  • • Association of Research Libraries (2010b): looking to 2030.

    • Though these all focus on higher education, these developments will also affect Special Collections in other sectors.

    The deciding factors, already noticeable now, will be:

  • Academia open or closed. Openness will encourage non-traditional learners, collaboration between expert hubs and sharing of digital resources, offering exciting possibilities for bringing Special Collections to the world. Closure will see universities protecting their intellectual property and market share by restricting access and sharing. Contrast Staley and Malenfant's ‘Archives on Demand’ and ‘Renaissance Redux’ and Futures ‘Walled Garden’, but note that in either case Special Collections has a role, for instance in the latter as sources of expertise and unique selling points.

  • Introduction

  • Alison Cullingford
  • Book:
    The Special Collections Handbook
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2016, pp xiii-xvi

  • Summary

    Introducing Special Collections

    So what are Special Collections, and where are they to be found? Special Collections are everywhere!

  • They are held by all kinds of organizations: research libraries, universities, colleges, schools, national libraries, public libraries, museums, art galleries, archives, historic houses, cathedrals, subscription libraries, learned societies, hospitals, companies, monasteries …

  • They include many kinds of material: early printed books, manuscripts, pamphlets, ephemera, maps, photographs, archives, newspapers, digital files and much more.

    • The term ‘Special Collections’ can refer to the collections themselves, the staff who care for them, the physical and virtual spaces they occupy, and the administrative department in a larger library that manages all these entities. In this Handbook, the context should make it clear which meaning is intended.

    The term also implies the existence of other, non-special collections. Many Special Collections services are part of a library which offers many other services, an arrangement typical of university and research libraries. However, you will also encounter libraries which contain mostly ‘special’ material, in which case the term is less likely to be used.

    Until relatively recently, Special Collections were seen as special because they needed special care: the materials were too old, valuable, rare, unique or fragile to be stored on open library shelves. As we will see in Chapter 1, this remains true: Special Collections materials need particular care if they are to survive, and their well-being should be at the heart of all management activities.

    However, Special Collections are special also because of their potential relevance to people outside the library service and in the long term.

    This idea becomes explicit in what Peach and Mertens (2014) describe as ‘the more expansive term’ Unique and Distinctive Collections, recently popularized by Research Libraries UK and the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). This term helps us define and explain the meaning and significance of collections in ways that transcend the traditional discussion of age and financial value (more detail in Cullingford, 2014). In this edition, I continue to use ‘Special Collections’ in most contexts, but refer to ‘unique and distinctive collections’ when appropriate.

  • Preface and acknowledgements

  • Alison Cullingford
  • Book:
    The Special Collections Handbook
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2016, pp xi-xii

  • Summary

    In 2000, I became the first ever Special Collections Librarian at the University of Bradford, UK. I took charge of collections that were truly hidden: little known, uncatalogued, unused, neglected and vulnerable to damage. Thanks to a great deal of help from colleagues at Bradford and in the profession, I have been able to make many of these materials available for the first time. I was thrilled to be asked by Facet Publishing to write this book to share my experience and knowledge of developing Special Collections from scratch with few resources. Five years on, this fully revised edition brings the busy student or practitioner up to date on the many new developments across our sector.

    Far too many people have helped directly or indirectly in the creation of both editions of this book to begin to thank them all, notably colleagues in the CILIP Rare Books and Special Collections Group, Research Libraries UK, and The National Archives. I would particularly like to mention here my colleagues at Bradford who gave me the opportunity to manage and transform a wonderful set of Special Collections, and above all the Special Collections Assistants, John Brooker and his successor Martin Levy. On a personal note, many, many thanks to Simon and to my parents for all their support.

  • 8 - User services in Special Collections

  • Alison Cullingford
  • Book:
    The Special Collections Handbook
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2016, pp 147-168

  • Summary

    Introduction

    Why do libraries care for collections, collect, catalogue and digitize them? So that people now and in the future can use them. This chapter is the first of three which consider the challenges of bringing people and collections together. Each takes a different perspective on user access: customer services, marketing and communication, and outreach. This chapter will cover individual services to users:

  • Discuss the nature of Special Collections users.

  • Discuss managing typical services: enquiries, physical visits, virtual and mobile visits, reprographics and inter-library loans.

  • Examine ways of improving services to users.

    • Understanding Special Collections users

    In order to manage and improve user services, it is essential to understand who users are and why they might wish to use Special Collections. In Chapter 9, we consider ways of analysing users and how to develop new audiences in more detail. Here are some basics to consider.

    Internal and external users of Special Collections

    A crucial question is the relationship of a user to the library or parent organization:

  • Internal, for example members, staff or students of a university, trustees, or other employees. A finite and known population.

  • External, i.e. general public. Much more scope for growth, but also harder to analyse. External users are more likely to want remote or virtual services, but when they do visit will need opening hours that allow them plenty of contact with collections.

    • (Of course, an individual interested in particular Special Collections might be internal or external at different times of their life!).

    The balance between internal and external users that is ‘right’ for a library will vary. Heavy internal use demonstrates value to the organization and helps maintain resources, but funding bodies will need evidence of use by external readers. In some libraries, for example subscription libraries or learned societies, internal users may be (and should be) dominant. However, if Special Collections contain unique and appealing material, and are marketed as discussed in this book, external people will want to use them, which may in turn benefit the parent organization.

  • 6 - Data management plans as a calling card

  • Robin Rice, John Southall
  • Book:
    The Data Librarian's Handbook
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2016, pp 87-102

  • Summary

    Responding to challenges in data support

    Academic librarians play an important role in supporting the research process throughout its many phases. In order to maintain this level of support they also need to be responsive to new requirements being placed on researchers. So while there are expectations from institutions and funders that more thought be given to the general principles of data management, there are also specific stages in the data lifecycle where new and potentially unfamiliar activities may be identified and supported. The production of a DMP is a perfect example of such an activity. It is an important stage in the management of research data where, ‘Principal investigators (PIs) … document their plans for describing, storing, securing, sharing, and preserving their research data’ (Bishoff and Johnston, 2015, 1), but also presents an opportunity for academic librarians to give guidance and introduce themselves to their target audience. Preparation of a DMP benefits from various stages of redrafting much like a consent agreement (a document discussed within this chapter and in more detail in Chapter 8). It is an opportunity for the data librarian to offer support and advice for what is becoming a key document – but also one that may be unfamiliar even to experienced researchers – which will have a great deal of impact.

    Leading by example: eight vignettes

    In this chapter we have selected case studies – or vignettes – from a range of disciplines to show how the demands of RDM are being dealt with at different institutions and how advice on data management planning is being used to establish links and recognition. Each is written by a different data librarian, research data manager or data professional, and illustrates how the needs of researchers are addressed through a mixture of awareness raising about RDM and troubleshooting specific details of project administration.

    Social science research at the London School of Economics and Political Science

    Laurence Horton, Data Librarian, Digital Library, London School of Economics

    Before the LSE Library set up an RDM support service in 2014, data management planning support consisted of the research office providing award applicants with a plan from someone's previously successful application and letting them copy and adapt it.

  • 11 - Organizational resources for Special Collections: space and people

  • Alison Cullingford
  • Book:
    The Special Collections Handbook
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2016, pp 215-238

  • Summary

    Introduction

    Special Collections need appropriate spaces to house collections, to make them available, and to work on them, plus sufficient staff with the right skills to carry out the activities described in this book. This chapter covers the requirements for Special Collections spaces and people and how to make the most of the resources available to the service.

    This chapter covers the key issues to consider in both areas:

  • Introduction to Special Collections spaces.

  • Space requirements.

  • How to improve space with building projects.

  • How to cope with inadequate spaces.

  • Introduction to Special Collections staffing.

  • Staff functions and roles.

  • Managing in difficult times.

  • Managing volunteers and interns, and discovering crowd power.

    • Special Collections functions and their space requirements As explained in Chapter 1, the storage environment is critical in keeping collections safe. Spaces of the right size and nature will also be needed for the other activities outlined in this book. To think effectively about space requirements, it is essential to understand the functions of Special Collections spaces and how they interconnect.

    Figure 11.1, a simplified version of a diagram in Kitching (2007) for archives services, shows the key functions and flows in a Special Collections service.

    Services may appear much more complex than this diagram, with outstores, exhibitions and other facilities outside their main building, or various branches and buildings. However, the functions represented are common to all Special Collections services.

    Note the barrier between public spaces and staff-only spaces. There is also often a barrier between public spaces open to everyone, such as cafés, shops and exhibitions, and reading rooms, which are much more strictly controlled. Such a structure allows a service to welcome the public and generate income from retail, etc., but protects collections by limiting numbers.

    The key flows are those of collections and of people (i.e. users and the general public). For security reasons, these flows are kept separate as much as possible except in designated areas: the reading room, exhibition area, learning spaces such as teaching or meeting rooms.

  • 1 - Data librarianship: responding to research innovation

  • Robin Rice, John Southall
  • Book:
    The Data Librarian's Handbook
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2016, pp 1-18

  • Summary

    The rise of data librarians

    A university has been defined as ‘just a group of buildings gathered around a library’ (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Shelby_Foote); in any case, the role of the library in academic life is a central one. Those working within libraries make a valuable contribution to supporting research and teaching as well as shaping the character and intellectual life of individual institutions. Whether a university focuses on the humanities, physical sciences, classics or any other number of disciplines, the librarian ultimately works to support learning and the spread of knowledge. This may take many established forms but increasingly there is a need to support new forms of information. Digital data is one particular new form. In the case of data collections and research data creation this has also led to the rise of a new kind of library professional: the data librarian. But to what extent is this in fact a new role and in what ways does it differ from traditional librarianship?

    For example, one role of the librarian is to deal with what may be called the lifecycle of information resources. These are the varied tasks to do with evaluation, selection, purchasing and promotion, and preservation of materials within the library. This relies on having a good working knowledge of what readers in a particular area need for their work. It also draws on a familiarity with what is being made available by publishers and other suppliers of information resources. The terms employed to describe a researcher also indicate the orientation or origin of research support services. Some may prefer traditional terms such as patron or – as favoured at the University of Oxford – reader, since this gives continuity to existing provision. The medium or methodologies being applied to the data are unimportant. On the other hand those working on support services created specifically to deal with digital data may feel older terms are inappropriate or anachronistic. Since digital information is often used in conjunction with software it is no longer ‘human-readable’ at all and its value lies in the fact it can be easily supplied to researchers. Their role is to manipulate, interpret, analyse, watch, listen to, or more generally ‘use’ the data. For this reason data centres or repositories often refer to ‘users’ of data.

  • 9 - Data sharing in the disciplines

  • Robin Rice, John Southall
  • Book:
    The Data Librarian's Handbook
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2016, pp 137-146

  • Summary

    Culture change in academia

    To work in research support is to be immersed in culture change, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. The arrival of a killer app or new technology may seem to transform the way research is conducted in a given field very quickly. On the other hand, universities have existed for centuries, and knowledge and research know-how are passed on from teacher to student in time-honoured fashion. Tradition slows down culture change, and minimizes effects of external factors on researchers’ behaviour, such as the use of social media.

    For example, young researchers who may not think twice about sharing aspects of their private life on social media may learn to be very guarded about revealing their data. This may be the case if their discipline's norms are to consider data to be a kind of capital, on which to fashion one's career. This is not wholly bad in itself, because it may protect them from jeopardizing their chances of getting published – for which an original work is usually required. Indeed, the Belmont Forum's Open Data Survey found that younger researchers were more concerned about being able to publish results before releasing data than older researchers (Schmidt, Gemeinholzer and Treloar, 2016, 6–7).

    So we tend to find that innovations in scholarly communication can take a generation or more to take root. For this reason librarians are often in the difficult position of championing scholarly innovations to research communities that seem stubbornly resistant to change. In these circumstances it can be challenging to find the right balance of patience and initiative. A support network of peers within your institution or in the wider world is therefore highly recommended!

    In the social sciences

    In our first chapter we discussed the history of data libraries and data archives, and the strong economic motivation of social scientists for getting access to large-scale survey and population census data collected by government agencies. The prevalence of data sharing for social scientists then are often focused on the receiving end of sharing. Large-scale academic surveys and longitudinal studies, known to be rich sources for re-use and funded with an expectation they will become resources for the wider community, are an exception.

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