A day in the life of a data librarian

1. A day in the life of a data librarian
Jane Frazier
Data Librarian @
jane.frazier@ands.org.au
@mignon1915

2. Data librarianship?
“[Using] traditional skills and
strengths of the librarian to
enable researchers to manage,
share, publish and/or preserve
their outputs in a connected way”
@groenewegendave
“Professional library staff engaged
in managing research data, using
research data as a resource, or
supporting researchers in these
activities”
@andsdata
“Application of traditional librarianship principles
and practices to data resources… involves
acquisition (collection development), organization
(cataloging and metadata), and the
implementation of appropriate user services”
IASSIST iBlog

3. My job responsibilities
ANDS Vocabulary Service
● Support users
● Give demos
● Write help documentation
● Write internal policy documentation
● Work with devs to improve service
Outreach officer at ANU
● Provide RDM support to library, IT and research office
● Let library, IT & research office know of new services/tools
that ANDS can provide or recommend
● Provide RDM support to RSPE Plexus project
Metadata & vocabulary expertise
● 23 Things expert on metadata & vocabs
● Run RIF-CS/metadata training
● Metadata mapping/XSLT for partners
Sit on various committees
● Metadata Advisory Group
● Business Solutions Working Group Participate in international RDM
● Research Data Alliance Vocabulary Services Interest Group

4. Music performance &
Musicology research
How I got to my current position...
● Undergrad and Masters degrees in Opera Performance
● ‘Soft skills’
○ Collaboration & communication
○ Self-motivation
○ Performance under pressure
○ Networking
○ Giving & receiving constructive criticism
● Humanities research & academic writing

5. Traditional cataloguing
Music performance &
Musicology research
How I got to my current position...
UNC-Chapel Hill Music Library
● Grad student assistantship
● Traditional MARC cataloguing
● Processing & binding of periodicals
● Curation of library exhibit Curating Sound: 75 Years of Music Collections at UNC

6. Digital curationDigital curation
Traditional cataloguing
Music performance &
Musicology research
How I got to my current position...
● Digital data repository environment
● Managed datasets underlying biosciences publications
● Data curation lifecycle
○ Metadata quality, DOI minting, data citation
○ Rights & licensing issues
○ Data repository software workflows
○ Communication with researchers & Dryad developers

7. How I got to my current position...
UNC Metadata Research Center
● Project: Redesign & rebuild MRC website
● Project: Evaluation of automatic subject indexing of Dryad datasets
○ Conceptual mapping between controlled vocabulary terms & subjects found in Dryad
metadata
● Project: Research on Dryad user-provided subject metadata
○ Recommendations for metadata best practices for Dryad scientists
<MRC>
Metadata research
Digital curation
Traditional cataloguing
Music performance &
Musicology research

8. Private sector
software dev
Metadata research
Digital curation
Traditional cataloguing
Music performance &
Musicology research
How I got to my current position...
● Private sector/startup/agile environment
● Building non-traditional cataloguing systems outside of libraries
● Software development, systems analysis, user testing
● Requirements gathering, documentation of legacy business rules, crosswalking
● Worked with developers & non-libraries colleagues
● Communication
○ Translating between technical & non-technical language

9. Data librarianship
Private sector
software dev
Metadata research
Digital curation
Traditional cataloguing
Music performance &
Musicology research
Data Librarian @ ANDS
● Metadata for Research Data Australia training
● ANDS Vocabulary Service development & user liaison
● ANDS partner institution data consultancy
● RDA metadata consultancy

10. My day-to-day role as data librarian
● Communication with ANDS & external colleagues
● Identify possible connections & duplicated effort within & outside of ANDS
● Requirements gathering & analysis
● Systems & business analysis
● Crosswalking for interoperability
● Metadata schema research & development
● UI design & mockup work
● Writing user support documentation
● Metadata creation best practice training & support
● Research!
my (current) toolkit

11. The main challenges in my work
● Translating ideas from a technical perspective to a non-technical one
(and vice versa)
● Keeping both the user & system perspectives in mind
● Quickly switching gears from one project to another
● Learning to work with external stakeholders
● Learning about the Australian research landscape

12. How I develop my skills...
● Use data as a vehicle to learn about new disciplines & technologies
● Ask questions
● Be extroverted at conferences
● Overcome fear of things ‘above my skill level’
● Google/Wikipedia/Stack Exchange/W3C/ISO are my friends
● I ❤ developers

13. Thinking of moving into a data librarianship role?
My two cents...
● Look past job titles
● Learn how to describe your skills in language that will be meaningful to the
people interviewing you
● Prepare to learn & adapt to emerging technologies
● Be proactive in developing your skills:

14. Databrarians
Resources for Data Librarianship: http://databrarians.org/resources-for-databrarians/
Data @ Libs
Data Librarianship educational resources: http://data.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/data-librarianship-educational-resources.html
Oz Data Librarians Google+ Group
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/105455769899183786145
Metadatalibrarians mailing list
http://lists.monarchos.com/listinfo.cgi/metadatalibrarians-monarchos.com
http://jobs.code4lib.org/
@code4lib
https://rd-alliance.org/

15. Twitter feeds related to data librarianship
● https://twitter.com/petahopkins/lists/23rdthings
● https://twitter.com/HughRundle/lists/data-information
● https://twitter.com/sallysetsforth/lists/ozlibrarypeeps
● https://twitter.com/TheStacksCat/lists/library-infosci-ppl
● https://twitter.com/katreeeena/lists/oa-sc-data
● https://twitter.com/1n9r1d/lists/datadata
...to follow, click “subscribe”

16. Thank you!
jane.frazier@ands.org.au
@mignon1915
*these slides are available at http://www.slideshare.net/mignon1915