Creating a Bibliography of Publications Analyzing or Discussing Library-Licensed Data

Among their many charges, academic libraries are responsible for developing collections that support institutional teaching and research. New and ongoing acquisitions must occur within the library’s budget and operational parameters. Data are particularly costly acquisitions because they (1) demand high and/or ongoing license fees; (2) must be hosted on specialized computational infrastructure; and (3) must be curated and/or managed by specialized staff.

Given these high costs, how can academic librarians assess the value of licensed data collections and justify their purchase? Because licensed data will generally have high cost-per-use, it may be more constructive to measure value using the volume and impact of research projects employing the data.

This poster will describe Stanford Libraries’ efforts to inventory scholarly literature that was (1) authored or edited by then Stanford-affiliated researchers; and (2) contains analysis or discussion of library-licensed data. These efforts are modeled on the ICPSR Bibliography of Data-related Literature: Originating Methodology (https://www-icpsr-umich-edu.stanford.idm.oclc.org/web/pages/ICPSR/citations/about.html). The poster will report the (1) purpose, goals and anticipated outcomes of the bibliography project; (2) project methodology, including publication inclusion criteria, search strategies and citation management; and (3) preliminary analysis of the compiled bibliography and how it does or does not demonstrate the value of licensed data collections.