The Fashion of Collaboration in Geospatial Data Librarianship: Shaping Emerging Research Data Management Services

To the best of my knowledge, there has been limited research in the context of geospatial data librarianship into the growing trends in its data services, particularly in regard to research data management services (RDMS) and collaboration trends. While geospatial data is becoming increasingly important in addressing global concerns and enabling a wide range of applications, there is still a gap in understanding how developing RDMS interact with collaborative efforts in the geospatial data librarianship area. These services include the difficult curation, preservation, and accessibility of geospatial datasets, each with its own set of spatial and temporal dimensions. Collaboration emerges as a critical feature at multiple levels within this dynamic ecology. For instance, inter-multidisciplinary collaborations are becoming more important as geospatial data librarians collaborate with researchers from other professions to build tailored RDMS for specific domains. This will ensure that data management strategies fit the specific needs of each profession. Second, intra-institutional interactions within institutions become critical for efficient RDMS, mandating close collaboration between libraries, research centres, IT departments, and cartography units. Such arrangements help to ensure the seamless integration of geospatial data into the academic and research environments, as well as a uniform approach to data stewardship. Finally, cross-sectoral collaborations among academic institutions, government agencies, and industry stakeholders are critical in shaping geospatial data management policies, standards, and practices, fostering advancements in RDMS on regional, national, and international scales. Through an examination of these trends, the absence of research on this topic may reveal the diverse degrees of collaboration inherent in the evolving fashion of geospatial data librarianship as it relates to enabling users access to geospatial data. This, in turn, will foster progressions in the domain of librarianship, geospatial sciences and its extensive pragmatic applications.