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.
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
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).
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
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.
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.
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.
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