Professional Development

Symposium on Institutional Data Services at Edinburgh

By robin

February 2, 2009

The Edinburgh University Data Library celebrated 25 years of support for staff and students in their discovery, access, use and management of research datasets. On 5 December 2008, following on from the Digital Curation Centre international conference held in Edinburgh that week, friends and colleagues from near and far gathered in the afternoon at the EDINA offices to celebrate the milestone with short speeches and cutting the cake, along with food, drink and toasts.

new IQ

By robin

August 15, 2008

The IASSIST Quarterly (IQ Vol. 31 issue 1 - 2007) is now available on the web: http://iassistdata.org/publications/iq/iqvol31.html Welcome to the first issue of the IASSIST Quarterly, vol. 31. We have passed the 34th IASSIST conference, also known as the Stanford IASSIST 2008 conference - best ever. However, the IASSIST Quarterly vol. 31 is known also as the 2007 volume. Yes, we are behind our schedule; but at least we are consistently so.

DDI, institutional repositories, and numeric data mashups

By robin

February 1, 2008

Announcing new deliverables from the DISC-UK DataShare project: DISC-UK DataShare: Web 2.0 Data Visualisation Tools, by Stuart Macdonald. The Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) and Institutional Repositories, by Luis Martinez. Both briefing papers can be retrieved from http://www.disc-uk.org/deliverables.html . There is also a new “Collective Intelligence” page with a tag cloud to links from our social bookmarks of reports, websites, and blogs related to the project themes. http://www.disc-uk.org/collective.html A newsfeed of deliverables and new bookmarks is available from the project blog at http://jisc-datashare.

IASSIST 2008 - Call for Papers!

By robin

October 29, 2007

Technology of Data: Collection, Communication, Access and Preservation The 34th International Association for Social Science Information Services and Technology (IASSIST) annual conference will be held at the Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, USA, May 27-30, 2008. This year’s conference, Technology of Data: Collection, Communication, Access and Preservation, examines the role of technology and tools in various aspects of the data life cycle. The theme of this conference addresses how technology can affect aspects of data stewardship throughout the data lifecycle.

Data analysis as performance art

By jajacobs

September 4, 2007

Data analysis as performance art is the title of a posting on Jon Udell’s blog where he introduces a really nicely done screencast comparing local and national crime data using ManyEyes, the online visualization software hosted by IBM. I found the screencast, Crime in New Hampshire: Exploring the data, interesting for several reasons: It is a good example of data availability (“I’ve been thinking about this because I’ve been trying to investigate a perceived crime wave in my home town.

Bad Data Examples Appeal

By San

June 19, 2007

Back in early April, I canvassed the IASSIST list for examples of articles, studies, or any publication that misuses data. My original message: “Do you keep news stories that mis-state, misinterpret or otherwise misuse numeric data? I have a faculty member who would like to use such examples to demonstrate to her students the importance of numeracy in real life. I have a few examples but suspect others of you may stash this kind of thing in a “Can you believe this?

RIN Consultation paper on stewardship of research data

By robin

May 2, 2007

The RIN (Research Information Network) has recently published a draft consultation paper - Stewardship of digital research data: a framework of principles and guidelines (April 2007) and are seeking feedback from practitioners. The draft discusses the shared framework of principles and guidelines required for key stakeholders (researchers, research institutions, funding bodies, libraries, data managers, learned societies and publishers) in order to maximise the potential benefits of digital research data and to help ensure that ‘ideas and knowledge derived from publicly-funded research should be made available and accessible for public use, interrogation, and scrutiny, as widely, rapidly and effectively as practicable.

Academic libraries and data

By robin

October 13, 2006

Shawn Nicholson pointed out on the IASSIST list: “As a follow on to the talk we heard in Ann Arbor, this set of PowerPoint presentations might be of interest: http://www.arl.org/info/events/ncr” NSF Workshop on New Collaborative Relationships: The Role of Academic Libraries in the Digital Data Universe

Q and A on data-librarianship

By jajacobs

June 22, 2006

During the colloquy hosted by the Chronicle of Higher Education today, there were a number of questions about the role of libraries and librarians in preservation of and access to data. Although the focus was on e-science more than social science, the questions and answers might be of interest. All the questions and answers are available here. D. Scott Brandt, associate dean of libraries at Purdue University, is helping to build a repository of scientific data.

Cataloging query: how does cataloging data differ from traditional library material?

By San

June 19, 2006

In their never ending quest for information, Jen, Tiffani and Paula would like to know about people’s experiences cataloging data. Do you use MARC format? Have you tried using DDI? At what level do you tend to catalog collections? How does it depart from cataloging traditional library matter? Enquiring minds want to know. Contributed by Jen Darragh