Navigating The Data Universe Together: Topics For New (and Not So New) Professionals

After a multi-year hiatus, the data librarian topical workshop from ICPSR’s Summer Program was relaunched in 2025. The course, Providing Data Services and Support: From Surviving to Succeeding, was offered virtually over two weeks in July 2025. Course content was structured around thematic sessions: introduction to the data lifecycle and data services, data formats and documentation, common data sources, data reference, licensing and collections, analysis tools, promoting data services, professional development, and finally, a "choose your own adventure" style special topics session.

In this interactive session, the course instructors want to hear from you, the international data community, about what special topics you think new and early career data librarians and data professionals should know. Perhaps you are passionate about IPUMS, enthusiastic about APIs for data access at scale, or on a mission to spread the word about a particular government survey - whatever it is, we want to hear it! Course instructors will be on hand to facilitate lively conversations, following a recap of which special topics were covered in the 2025 course and the (very positive) learner responses. Through group brainstorming activities, we will document the collective insights of this session’s attendees to share with the 2026 cohort of this ICPSR course, as well as the broader IASSIST community.

All career and experience levels are welcome! You will come out of this session having built connections with other data enthusiasts and expanded your data universe.