Talk given to Virginia SLA on November 15, 2013

1. Getting Started with Data in Your Library
Margaret Henderson
Director, Research Data Management
VCU Libraries

3. Research Data means recorded information, regardless of form or the media
in which it may be recorded, which constitute the original observations and
methods of a study and the analyses of these original data that are necessary
for reconstruction and evaluation of the Report(s) of a study made by one or
more Investigators. Research Data also includes all such recorded information
gathered in anticipation of a Report. Research Data differ among disciplines.
The term may include but is not limited to technical information, computer
software, laboratory and other notebooks, printouts, worksheets, other
media, survey, memoranda, evaluations, notes, databases, clinical case
history records, study protocols, statistics, findings, conclusions, samples,
physical collections, other supporting materials created or gathered in the
course of the Research, Tangible Research Property, unique Research
resources such as synthetic compounds, organisms, cell lines, viruses, cell
products, cloned DNA as well as genetic sequences and mapping information,
crystallographic coordinates, plants, animals and spectroscopic data, and
other compilations formed by selecting and assembling preexisting materials
in a unique way.

4. Big data is like teenage sex: everyone talks about
it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone
thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone
claims they are doing it…”— Dan Ariely
https://www.facebook.com/dan.ariely http://danariely.com/

5. “If it gives you pain, it is Big Data.”
- Donald Brown, new Director of Virginia Integrative Data Institute, speaking
at Research Data and Technology Fair presented by Claude Moore Health
Sciences Library, University of Virginia Health System

6. Lots of Small Data = Big Data
Heidorn, P. Bryan. (2008) Shedding Light on the Dark Data in the Long Tail of Science. Library Trends, 57(2), pp.280-299.

7. http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/campaigns/res3/jischelp.aspx

9. Data in the Research Life Cycle
From Data Management Consulting Group, UVA Library.

10. http://www.dcc.ac.uk/

11. Libraries and Data
Library and information professionals:
• need to become more involved with semantic
web or users will reinvent wheel (i.e. ontologies)
• have the interpersonal and subject specialization
for reference/consultation that IT doesn't have
• continue to help users find the information they
need.
Stuart, David.(2011) Facilitating Access to the Web of Data: a Guide for Librarians. Facet
Publishing.

12. What Can You Do to Help?
•
•
•
•
•
•
Learn about data.
Learn about data in your organization.
Find the gaps.
Help people figure out what they need.
Help people find what they need.
What other skills do you have? Analysis?
Visualization? Programming? Etc.

13. Learn About Data
•
•
•
•
DataONE http://www.dataone.org/best-practices
MANTRA http://datalib.edina.ac.uk/mantra/
RDMRose http://rdmrose.group.shef.ac.uk/
UK Data Archive http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/home
http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/media/2894/managingsharing.pdf
• Kdnuggets http://www.kdnuggets.com/

14. Who Else is Involved?
Scholarly
Communication
Collection
Analysis and
Investment
Education/
Instruction
Preservation
and Inventory
Management
Research Data
Services
Digital
Technologies
Liaisons at
TML and
Cabell
Metadata and
Discovery
Analysis
and
infographics
(various
depts.)
VCU
Schools,
Institutes
and Centers
Technology
Services
Office of
Research
Research Data
Services
Faculty and
Researchers
Center for
Clinical and
Translationa
l Research

15. Gaps
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SWOT_en.svg

16. What are Your Organizational Needs?
Reuse of Data
for Research
and Education
Education of
New
Researchers
Data
Management
Data Storage
Data Curation
Open Access
Data Needs
Links to
Articles –
Data DOI
Lab
Notebooks
Author ID –
Disambiguati
on, i.e.
ORCID, etc.
Impact Story
– Citation of
Data

17. Outside Pressures
• Regulatory requirements
• Grant and funding requirements
• Journal requirements
http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/
• Patent/ Intellectual Property documentation
• Need to keep market share
• etc.

18. Data Interviews
• Purdue Data Curation Profile
http://datacurationprofiles.org/
• Data Management Plan https://dmp.cdlib.org/ or
Simplified DMP
http://library.umassmed.edu/data_management_frameworks.pdf (pg 21)
to go over basics
• Research and work flow story

19. Keep Learning More
•
•
•
•
MOOCs
Library school classes and programs
Statistics and analysis http://www.gapminder.org/
Twitter (#data or follow a particular group,
person, or meeting)
• Listservs
• Journals
• Conferences
http://www.slideshare.net/AbigailGoben/keeping-up-with-data

20. And More
• Blogs
– Kevin the Librarian http://kevinthelibrarian.wordpress.com/
– Strata (O’Reilly) http://strata.oreilly.com/
- Flowing Data
http://flowingdata.com/
http://flowingdata.com/2013/10/14/pizza
-place-geography/

21. Data Re-Use
• Databib http://databib.org/
• OpenDOAR (Directory of Open Access
Repositories) http://www.opendoar.org/
• DATA.gov http://www.data.gov/
• ICPSR (Inter-University Consortium for Political
and Social Research) subscription
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/

22. http://www.dataone.org/
http://figshare.com/
http://datadryad.org/

23. Find a Niche
• Disciplinary Metadata
http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/metadata-standards
• “Data Analysis” (Coursera) videos
http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2013/04/coursera-dataanalysis-course-videos.html
• Research Data Management: Principles, Practices,
and Prospects (DataRes project, library response to
data) http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub160/pub160.pdf

24. Assessment
• Keep track of what you do.
• Keep track of what is done with the
information you find.
• Altmetrics http://impactstory.org/
• Data citation “Out of Cite, Out of Mind”
http://dx.doi.org/10.2481/dsj.OSOM13-043

25. Thank you.
@mehlibrarian
http://wp.vcu.edu/mehenderson/
http://www.slideshare.net/MargaretHenderson

26. Data Snafu in 3 Acts
• http://youtu.be/66oNv_DJuPc
• If there is time I will show this, if not, it is here
for you to watch and use.