James L. Mullins. "The Policy and Institutional Framework." In Research Data Management: Practical Strategies for Information Professionals (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2014. 436 pages. ISBN 9781557536648): 25-44.
Author James Mullins, Dean of Libraries at Purdue University, has been immersed in the development of data management policy and infrastructure since his arrival at Purdue in 2004. In this chapter, Mullins describes the development of national policy in the area of research data management, and follows that with a case study about Purdue's own move towards managing data.
Mullins begins by describing the realization within the scientific community that research data could and should be shared so that researchers weren't redundantly conducting research to get data that had already been done by another researcher. One of the projects that brought this to light was the Human Genome Project, which generated massive amounts of data. Federal granting agencies were especially interested in preventing the duplication of research, since they were funding many of the studies that were creating redundant data sets.
Studies sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and others identified the many challenges that research organizations faced, and a movement to require data management plans as part of grant-funding requirements began to grow. Recognizing that there was no infrastructure to support data management, the NSF offered a series of grants to encourage organizations to develop and model such infrastructures. Other institutions, such as the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) also support research in this area. One such project resulted in the development of the Data Curation Profiles Toolkit (http://datacurationprofiles.org/). ARL got in on the game by creating the E-Science Institute with seed funding from 70 of its members, and has presented workshops and provided other resources on this issue.
The second half of this chapter was devoted to a description of Purdue University's efforts to create research data management services through collaboration with others across the university.
Friday, April 18, 2014
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Research Data Management, Edited by Joyce M. Ray
Joyce M. Ray. Research Data Management: Practical Strategies for Information Professionals. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2014. 436 pages. ISBN 9781557536648.
This isn't a full-fledged review of Research Data Management; rather, it's just a short introduction to this book. Joyce Ray, currently a visiting professor at the Berlin School of Library and Information Science at Humboldt University, has edited this volume containing nineteen essays and case studies which discuss how research data might be managed. The book is organized into six parts, addressing policy issues, planning, managing project data, archiving data in repositories, assessment, and in the sixth part, presenting four case studies. Clifford Lynch provides a concluding essay. The chapters are written by many of today's leaders and thinkers, all well-qualified to write on this topic.
Over the next week or two I will be discussing Research Data Management in this blog space. My university administration has just announced a forum on research data to be held in early May, so this book is very timely.
This isn't a full-fledged review of Research Data Management; rather, it's just a short introduction to this book. Joyce Ray, currently a visiting professor at the Berlin School of Library and Information Science at Humboldt University, has edited this volume containing nineteen essays and case studies which discuss how research data might be managed. The book is organized into six parts, addressing policy issues, planning, managing project data, archiving data in repositories, assessment, and in the sixth part, presenting four case studies. Clifford Lynch provides a concluding essay. The chapters are written by many of today's leaders and thinkers, all well-qualified to write on this topic.
Over the next week or two I will be discussing Research Data Management in this blog space. My university administration has just announced a forum on research data to be held in early May, so this book is very timely.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Changing Role of Senior Administrators, by Kathleen DeLong, Julie Garrison, and Marianne Ryan
Kathleen DeLong, Julie Garrison, and Marianne Ryan. Changing Role of Senior Administrators: A SPEC Kit. Washington, D.C.: Association of Research Libraries, 2012. 174 pages. ISBN 9781594078873.
In my last blog post I opened with a description of what SPEC Kits are; I will just add here that SPEC stands for "Systems and Procedures Exchange Center" and you can find more information about the entire series at http://publications.arl.org/SPEC_Kits.
Changing Role of Senior Administrators takes a look at how senior administrator positions have changed from 2007 to 2012. Only 46 member libraries responded to this survey, with a fairly low response rate of 37 percent. Their findings show that senior administrator titles are becoming more general, with less of an emphasis on specific areas of responsibility like public services or technical services. The tables on pages 18 through 29 demonstrate the changing positions and titles of senior administrators; tables on pages 35 through 51 show how those positions' responsibilities have changed and who their direct reports are.
The survey also addresses the 21st century skills that senior administrators must have, and indicates that these skills are acquired by attendance at professional institutes such as the ARL Research Library Leadership Fellows Program, the Frye Institute, or the Harvard Leadership Institute; reading professional literature, attending professional conferences, and networking. The survey also identifies desirable attributes of senior administrators, with "Changes/shapes library culture" at the top of the list, followed closely by "Functions in a political environment" and "Makes tough decisions."
Survey respondents indicate that they would be likely to redesign any senior administrator position, should a vacancy occur (79 percent), but only 45 percent expect to do so in the next one to three years. If there were a vacancy, they reported that they would expect the successful hire to come from another research library (91 percent), from within their own organization (67 percent), from another type of library (28 percent), or outside the library profession (19 percent).
This is an interesting snapshot of the current state of research library administrations and their viewpoints on how their administrations will change over the next few years.
In my last blog post I opened with a description of what SPEC Kits are; I will just add here that SPEC stands for "Systems and Procedures Exchange Center" and you can find more information about the entire series at http://publications.arl.org/SPEC_Kits.
Changing Role of Senior Administrators takes a look at how senior administrator positions have changed from 2007 to 2012. Only 46 member libraries responded to this survey, with a fairly low response rate of 37 percent. Their findings show that senior administrator titles are becoming more general, with less of an emphasis on specific areas of responsibility like public services or technical services. The tables on pages 18 through 29 demonstrate the changing positions and titles of senior administrators; tables on pages 35 through 51 show how those positions' responsibilities have changed and who their direct reports are.
The survey also addresses the 21st century skills that senior administrators must have, and indicates that these skills are acquired by attendance at professional institutes such as the ARL Research Library Leadership Fellows Program, the Frye Institute, or the Harvard Leadership Institute; reading professional literature, attending professional conferences, and networking. The survey also identifies desirable attributes of senior administrators, with "Changes/shapes library culture" at the top of the list, followed closely by "Functions in a political environment" and "Makes tough decisions."
Survey respondents indicate that they would be likely to redesign any senior administrator position, should a vacancy occur (79 percent), but only 45 percent expect to do so in the next one to three years. If there were a vacancy, they reported that they would expect the successful hire to come from another research library (91 percent), from within their own organization (67 percent), from another type of library (28 percent), or outside the library profession (19 percent).
This is an interesting snapshot of the current state of research library administrations and their viewpoints on how their administrations will change over the next few years.
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Library Contribution to Accreditation, by Holly Mercer and Michael Maciel
Holly Mercer and Michael Maciel. Library Contribution to Accreditation: A SPEC Kit. Washington, D.C.: Association of Research Libraries, 2012. 184 pages. ISBN 9781594078859.
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) conducts six surveys of its membership every year on topics of interest to its members. The survey results and accompanying documentation are published as a monograph, and are acquired by member libraries as well as other academic libraries that find their findings useful. Most SPEC kits include an executive summary, the survey questions and responses, a list of responding institutions, documentation supplied by the responding libraries, and a brief list of resources.
Library Contributions to Accreditation addresses library involvement in regional and programmatic accrediting activities. Response to this survey was on the low side, with 41 of the 115 academic ARL libraries responding. Ninety-five percent of respondents reported that they had been involved in accreditation activities within the last five years. There are six regional accrediting agencies in the U.S.; Canadian accreditation activities are conducted on the provincial level. I was surprised at the number and variety of programmatic accreditation agencies; there were 146 listed in the responses.
The types of data that responding libraries supplied for accreditation were collection holdings, facilities & equipment, financial data, instruction sessions, collections usage, staff qualifications & expertise, reference transactions, ILL transactions, digital projects & usage, scholarly communications activities, and "other data."
One of the survey questions asked respondents to describe what recommendations the accrediting agency had made to the library. In most cases, they had no recommendations, or simply stated that the library was meeting its goals and should continue doing what it's doing.
My interest in this topic came from an Association for Library Collections & Technical Services webinar that I gave November 20, 2013 on "Assessment Strategies for Cataloging Managers." (This webinar will be available free on or soon after May 20, 2014 at: http://www.ala.org/alcts/confevents/upcoming/webinar/112013.) One bit of feedback that I got included this statement: "The content of the material covered was specifically for internal improvement within cataloging/technical services divisions, and not to meet the external requirements of things like accreditation, which requires measurable ways to assess how cataloging contributes to the educational goals of the college." Although the webinar was not intended to address cataloging's contributions to accreditation requirements, this made me curious about whether there are expectations regarding this in our accreditation reports. According to Library Contributions to Accreditation, it doesn't appear that libraries are expected to report on cataloging data or outcomes in their accreditation reports, but I would like to look into this more closely.
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) conducts six surveys of its membership every year on topics of interest to its members. The survey results and accompanying documentation are published as a monograph, and are acquired by member libraries as well as other academic libraries that find their findings useful. Most SPEC kits include an executive summary, the survey questions and responses, a list of responding institutions, documentation supplied by the responding libraries, and a brief list of resources.
Library Contributions to Accreditation addresses library involvement in regional and programmatic accrediting activities. Response to this survey was on the low side, with 41 of the 115 academic ARL libraries responding. Ninety-five percent of respondents reported that they had been involved in accreditation activities within the last five years. There are six regional accrediting agencies in the U.S.; Canadian accreditation activities are conducted on the provincial level. I was surprised at the number and variety of programmatic accreditation agencies; there were 146 listed in the responses.
The types of data that responding libraries supplied for accreditation were collection holdings, facilities & equipment, financial data, instruction sessions, collections usage, staff qualifications & expertise, reference transactions, ILL transactions, digital projects & usage, scholarly communications activities, and "other data."
One of the survey questions asked respondents to describe what recommendations the accrediting agency had made to the library. In most cases, they had no recommendations, or simply stated that the library was meeting its goals and should continue doing what it's doing.
My interest in this topic came from an Association for Library Collections & Technical Services webinar that I gave November 20, 2013 on "Assessment Strategies for Cataloging Managers." (This webinar will be available free on or soon after May 20, 2014 at: http://www.ala.org/alcts/confevents/upcoming/webinar/112013.) One bit of feedback that I got included this statement: "The content of the material covered was specifically for internal improvement within cataloging/technical services divisions, and not to meet the external requirements of things like accreditation, which requires measurable ways to assess how cataloging contributes to the educational goals of the college." Although the webinar was not intended to address cataloging's contributions to accreditation requirements, this made me curious about whether there are expectations regarding this in our accreditation reports. According to Library Contributions to Accreditation, it doesn't appear that libraries are expected to report on cataloging data or outcomes in their accreditation reports, but I would like to look into this more closely.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)