Scoping future library data services at the University of Sheffield (UK)

This paper presents the methods and findings of a scoping study conducted by members of the Faculty Engagement and Scholarly Communications Teams at the University of Sheffield (UK) to inform proposals for future library data services. Taking account of the library’s ambitions to facilitate both human and machine access to its open and subscription data, the project gathered information on sectoral best practice, user needs, and existing cross-university data services provision to identify potential services, to identify the resourcing required to realise those ambitions, and to harmonise the library’s offering with existing services. The project engaged primarily in desk research but also conducted qualitative interviews with researchers to understand their research data needs and to understand the technical and contractual barriers they had encountered when attempting to access subscription data to which they had lawful access. While the project began with a narrow focus on realising the library’s ambitions for collections-as-data, we found that researchers repeatedly raised the value of access to librarians themselves as archivists, copyright specialists, and systems and metadata experts. In our vision for future library data services, facilitating opportunities for research collaborations with our people will be as important as facilitating access to our collections.