Creating The Tourodata Research Data Catalog: Gathering Data Records Across A Global University System

As scientific research moves toward FAIR data principles and funders increasingly require researchers to make their data available, scientific research data is increasingly being hosted across a plethora of data repositories. Data Catalogs are important tools for collecting records of the data produced by researchers at the same institution but deposited across disparate repositories. Touro University and New York Medical College (NYMC) wanted to create a data catalog that represented the combined research data output across the 36 schools of the Touro University System. The goal of the catalog is to create increased visibility and discoverability of the research effort across all Touro schools. A committee of librarians across Touro and NYMC gathered to explore how best to build the catalog. After a thorough exploration of our options, we settled on creating a series within our existing Digital Commons institutional repository. After about a year of work, TouroData launched at the beginning of December 2025. Catalog records include metadata such as abstract, Touro school affiliation, funding information, and links to the data in a data repository. We hope to share our experiences in setting up TouroData and encourage other institutions without their own data repositories to consider creating a data catalog of their own.