A LITA guide to data management for libraries

CHICAGO — Since the National Science Foundation joined the National Institutes of Health in requiring that grant proposals include a data management plan, academic librarians have been inundated with related requests from faculty and campus-based grant consulting offices. Data management is a new service area for many library staff, requiring careful planning and implementation. “Data Management for Libraries: A LITA Guide,” published by ALA TechSource, offers a start-to-finish primer on understanding, building and maintaining a data management service, showing another way the academic library can be invaluable to researchers. Laura Krier and Carly A. Strasser of the California Digital Library guide readers through every step of a data management plan by:

• offering convincing arguments to persuade researchers to create a data management plan, with advice on collaborating with them;
• laying out all the foundations of starting a service, complete with sample data librarian job descriptions and data management plans;
• providing tips for conducting successful data management interviews;
• leading readers through making decisions about repositories and other infrastructure;
• addressing sensitive questions such as ownership, intellectual property, sharing and access, metadata and preservation.

Krier is a metadata librarian at the California Digital Library in Oakland, Calif. She works on projects ranging from data modeling and analysis to research into linked data models for libraries.



Strasser is a data curation specialist at the California Digital Library, University of California Office of the President. She is involved in development and implementation of many of the UC Curation Center’s services, including the DMPTool (software to guide researchers in creating a data management plan) and DataUp (an application that helps researchers organize, manage, and archive their tabular data).

The Library and Information Technology Association (LITA), a division of ALA, educates, serves and reaches out to its members, other ALA members and divisions, and the entire library and information community through its publications, programs and other activities designed to promote, develop, and aid in the implementation of library and information technology.

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Related Links

"Data Management for Libraries: A LITA Guide"

"Library Linked Data: Research and Adoption"

"Delivering Research Data Management Services: Fundamentals of Good Practice"