Professional Development

Defining Data Librarian - call for comments

By San

June 12, 2006

Tiffani Conner, Paula Lackie and Jen Darragh are working on the handouts for an ALA poster session and have found that defining “data” and “data librarian” clearly, in a concise manner, for a non-data audience is really hard. In addition, some of the sources they consulted (the Online Dictionary of Library and Information Science - ODLIS , Oxford English Dictionary ) were not adequate (ODLIS has data, data set, social science data set but the definitions are not that great).

New report on Eurostat and statistical integration

By robin

February 15, 2006

Title: Administering information: Eurostat and statistical integration The chapter examines developments and changes in the organization of numerical information in the EU, in particular the role of Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Commission. How and to what extent can we observe the emergence of a pan-European informational system? Full Text (PDF, 31 pages, 157.2 KB) http://www.arena.uio.no/publications/working-papers2005/papers/wp05_27.pdfTitle: Administering information: Eurostat and statistical integration Author: Ulf Sverdrup October 2005 European Research Papers Archive

Data Literacy in the Spotlight

By San

November 4, 2005

I am very pleased to announce that the special double issue of the IASSIST Quarterly (IQ issues Vol. 28-2 and 28-3 on “data literacy” is now available on the web. Thanks to the special guest editors and the authors there are contributions in the form of eight articles on the subject of “data literacy”. This is a subject that has the focus of many IASSIST efforts among them themes and sessions at conferences.

Report on Access to Scientific Research Data

By Chuck

June 21, 2005

The final report of the Canadian National Consultation on Access to Scientific Research Data has just been released containing eighteen recommendations to improve open access to research data in Canada. While some of these recommendations are unique to the Canadian context, others share a close relationship with the recommendations of the International Council for Science report, Scientific Data and Information. Supported by the National Research Council of Canada, a task force was established in June 2004 to provide advice about improving access to scientific research data.

Discovering a Profession: the accidental data librarian

By Chuck

June 14, 2005

A session at the Edinburgh conference addressed a topic that arose earlier in the year on the IASSIST email discussion list about how people prepare and enter the profession of data librarianship. In general, is there a profession of data librarianship?An interesting question was presented on the IASSIST email discussion list earlier this year asking how one becomes a data librarian. Several people replied by relating personal accounts about their entry into this profession.