Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Curating research data: the potential roles of libraries and information professionals

Curating research data: the potential roles of libraries and information professionals Purpose – A key issue in the literature about research libraries concerns their potential role in managing research data. The aim of this paper is to study the arguments for and against associating this task with libraries and the impact such an association would have on information professionals, and consider the competitors to libraries in this field. Design/methodology/approach – This paper considers the nature of data and discusses data typologies, the kinds of data contained within databases and the implications of criticisms of the data‐information‐knowledge (DIK) hierarchy. It outlines the many competing agencies in the data curation field and describes their relationships to different kinds of data. Findings – Many data are organically connected to the activities of large, domain‐specific organizations; as such, it might be difficult for research libraries to assume a leadership role in curating data. It seems more likely that the qualifications of information professionals will come to be needed in such organizations and that the functions of research libraries will shift toward giving greater prevalence to their role as specialists in scholarly communication. In some cases, however, research libraries may be the best place to select, keep, organize and use research data. To prepare for this task, research libraries should be actively involved in domain‐specific analytic studies of their respective domains. Originality/value – This paper offers a theoretical analysis and clarification of the problems of data curating from the perspective of research libraries. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Documentation Emerald Publishing

Curating research data: the potential roles of libraries and information professionals

Hans Jørn Nielsen; Birger Hjørland
Journal of Documentation , Volume 70 (2): 20 – Mar 4, 2014
Download PDF
20 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/curating-research-data-the-potential-roles-of-libraries-and-OYFIhUtqxc

References (33)

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 Emerald Group Publishing Limited. All rights reserved.
ISSN
0022-0418
DOI
10.1108/JD-03-2013-0034
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Purpose – A key issue in the literature about research libraries concerns their potential role in managing research data. The aim of this paper is to study the arguments for and against associating this task with libraries and the impact such an association would have on information professionals, and consider the competitors to libraries in this field. Design/methodology/approach – This paper considers the nature of data and discusses data typologies, the kinds of data contained within databases and the implications of criticisms of the data‐information‐knowledge (DIK) hierarchy. It outlines the many competing agencies in the data curation field and describes their relationships to different kinds of data. Findings – Many data are organically connected to the activities of large, domain‐specific organizations; as such, it might be difficult for research libraries to assume a leadership role in curating data. It seems more likely that the qualifications of information professionals will come to be needed in such organizations and that the functions of research libraries will shift toward giving greater prevalence to their role as specialists in scholarly communication. In some cases, however, research libraries may be the best place to select, keep, organize and use research data. To prepare for this task, research libraries should be actively involved in domain‐specific analytic studies of their respective domains. Originality/value – This paper offers a theoretical analysis and clarification of the problems of data curating from the perspective of research libraries.

Journal

Journal of Documentation – Emerald Publishing

Published: Mar 4, 2014

Keywords: Data collection; Data handling

There are no references for this article.