Data Science and emerging technologies: the role of libraries and why partnerships matter

The panel will offer viewpoints on the role of academic libraries as campuses continue to place increasing emphasis on data science and associated new technologies. With support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a cohort of representatives from universities around the United States convened in spring of 2023 to discuss topics on models in data science consulting and collaboration in higher education. Participants represented many different administrative locations on their campuses, including academic departments, stand alone centers, and libraries. The three panelists represented their respective libraries in this project and will share perspectives from their own work on ways that libraries are contributing to the data science ecosystem in higher education. The panel will kick off with some of the key findings and takeaways from that project and then each panelist will contribute more detailed perspectives. Joel Herndon will share new collaborations among Duke Libraries, the Center for Computational thinking, and Duke’s Masters in Interdisciplinary Data Science to support data science across campus. Mara Blake will share more about the collaboration between the NC State Libraries and Data Science Academy to provide data science consulting to campus and their successes engaging graduate students in the provision of such services. Andy Rutkowski will talk about the challenges of developing a new data services model at USC and working on a set of grants with an interdisciplinary team of faculty that are focused on providing data consultation and support to a local community organization.