The following is excerpted from an invited talk I gave at the Oklahoma State University Library in early April. I’ve embedded the slides below but you can also scroll through for my notes – not the most thorough writeup I’ve ever written but enough to give you a glimpse at my discussion points!
I’d love to hear whether these ideas fit with your experiences with library digital scholarship services, either here in the comments or on Twitter.
I gave a webinar for ACRL’s Digital Curation Interest Group (DCIG) earlier this month! As hard as it always is to give recordings a fresh listen and hear all the times I say umm and so!, what can you do? I had fun and I’m so glad I could share some of my ideas on shaping RDM and digital scholarship services. You can either watch the full recording here or skim my slides below.
Note: This text is cross-posted from the Winnower in response to the ARCS/Winnower essay contest. You can also view the original version. I am grateful to Stacy Konkiel for bringing the contest to my attention and encouraging me to share my story.
For a long time I let the things I am not – namely, a researcher and an expert – stop me from having an impact. I wasn’t quite sure that my words carried any weight, especially as I struggled with how to classify myself as I transitioned from graduate school. Though I work for a library, I am not a librarian (by training, sure, though not by job title). I am not even a data specialist (not by training, though maybe through experience). I don’t consider myself to have any specific expertise, not really, but I am conversant and curious. All of this led to real uncertainty over how to direct my work and the uncomfortable feeling that I didn’t fit anywhere.
I got a lucky break, though. Open Con 2014 introduced a world teeming with ideas and energy. It didn’t matter that I was a twentysomething with pink hair and a brand new job I didn’t know what to do with. For the first time, openness felt inevitable and powerful, not just one of my weird tangentially relevant side interests. I recognized that there were passionate people from very different disciplines and corners of the world who were ready to work together. Critically, I heard directly from researchers who had embraced openness, including Erin McKiernan, Jon Tennant, and Ross Mounce.
Open Con forced me to break down artificial boundaries I’d internalized: the idea of librarians as “other”, separate from researchers, seen as helpful but somehow lesser. It wasn’t that I felt disrespected in my library role; it was just that I found myself waiting for cues that weren’t likely to come. It seems silly to say but before Open Con, my understanding of the inner workings of academic research was rudimentary at best. It felt like there were more doors closed than open when it came to interacting with researchers and really understanding their environment. I recognized that I wouldn’t get an invitation to engage, not from my library or from researchers themselves. I would just have to make openness my business and bring my library along for the ride.
I am leading a workshop series this semester! It’s sort of an unexpected development. After I gave my scholarly communication talk I got rather fired up. I had this jolt. Why am I talking about this need and not doing anything about it. It was an eerie moment of responsibility. You see the need. You’re not being asked to do anything about the need. Often, the need is not recognized or valued by others around you. By addressing the need, you’re veering slightly off the path that has been ascribed to you (even though, true, it’s a vague path). You are committing yourself basically to working nights and weekends to make it happen in the way it needs to happen… to not only creating the content and creating the buzz to get people in the door but also to unearthing historic rivalries, the politics of not fitting anywhere, and to ultimately making it happen through whatever charm and perseverance you can muster. None of that changes the fact that you see the need, though. So here I am! Testing some approaches out this semester and seeing what will stick. I’ve got one workshop down, three more to go.
Sidenote: I have been getting a fair number of questions about graphic design lately. I use the free version of Canva to design my posters. This guy was created late one night when inspiration struck. I plan to write a post sometime soon on this topic!
The DIL reading group came about in much the same way that other ideas have popped into my head: one moment it wasn’t there, the next it suddenly was. I was leading an early summer RDS meeting and reflecting on the challenge of figuring out meaningful ways of growing our collective knowledge about data management education. Suddenly it hit me: we should start a reading group. It would provide a chance for RDS members, including myself, to carve out time for these topics, to build community (especially with liaisons, who are so critical to the success of these efforts!), and to increase the visibility of RDS within the libraries. A total win-win situation.
So many ideas have been rattling around in my head, percolating, ever since I attended the Data Information Literacy Symposium in 2013. I distinctly remember how thrilled I was to be coming to UW-Madison, where there was a whole team of people already aware of the importance of RDM. I had tons of ideas about the projects we could undertake. I wasn’t really aware of some of the challenges and underlying issues at the time, and the truth is that there are no existing resources for any sort of targeted RDM education. The outreach and education happens if and when I can offer one-off sessions but that’s about it. I’ve been doing my best to build relationships, especially with liaisons, but it’s wild how challenging it can be to figure out how to break into this area! I figured a reading group was a good place to start finding others who could champion data information literacy alongside me.
On August 19, I sent out the following email to the libraries and RDS listservs:
In an effort to collectively grow our knowledge on teaching data management skills, Research Data Services is convening a fall reading group. This is a good opportunity for librarians, technologists, and graduate students to come together to learn about and discuss an emerging topic in our field. A basic understanding of data management core concepts and information literacy core concepts is helpful but in-depth knowledge is not necessary. We will read Data Information Literacy, published by Purdue Libraries Press. Copies of the book will be provided courtesy of the GLS.
The DIL reading group will meet monthly in September, October, November, and December at times selected after reading group participants have been identified. We ask that those who join the group commit to coming to all four 1.5 hour meetings, barring unexpected schedule changes. At the end of the year we will evaluate as a group what future steps could be taken to implement what we have learned.
This reading group will be capped at ten participants. To express interest in joining, please contact me no later than Friday, August 28.
Then I waited. Who would be interested? I had no idea. As it turned out, we had nearly double (almost 20) people express interest, though I stayed true to my cap. Participants include liaisons across disciplines (mostly sciences), a teaching and learning librarian, two graduate students, and a non-librarian RDS member. (Note: there would be tremendous value in explicitly opening up the group to campus rather than just the libraries, but I am starting close to home and keeping it manageable in this experimental phase.)
This year (several months ago, ahem) I presented at the Research Data Access & Preservation Summit, held in nearby Minneapolis. I led a panel focused on different RDM collaboration and service models at institutions. I was joined by Cynthia Hudson-Vitale from Washington University in St. Louis and Amy Nurnberger from Columbia University. Our abstract:
Research data services is not just a library issue. Experience and scholarship has shown that given the complex nature of research data services, various units and departments across an institution must work together to provide appropriate services. One component of the solution is to form a research data services advisory committee or working group. This panel will focus on the various organizational structures in place at different institutions, addressing change management /transition issues and roles this committee may play.
If you’d like to breeze through my slides, here they are:
But like I’ve done with other slide decks, I thought I would also annotate what I covered in my talk to make it more understandable.
I loved ACRL 2013 in Indianapolis and it seems a little crazy that ACRL 2015 in Portland, Oregon, has already come and gone! Let me ramble through my conference experience, per usual.
On Wednesday I attended the data management preconference offered by several data management librarians I’ve enjoyed interacting with on Twitter for a while now. Check out #acrldatasvcs for tweets.
Despite my above tweet, the preconference was great! Lots of food for thought, captured adequately in an email I shared with Research Data Services that I’ll share with you as well.
I am zooming headlong into the fog of library conference season. I’m doubtful that I’ll be anything but on autopilot for the next month and a half, starting this month for ACRL and ending with the LYRASIS eGathering in May. With this in mind I thought I’d share some of the recent talks I’ve given before heading into the next round!
Wayyy back in December I gave a talk at the UW Digital Humanities Research Network, one of the more inspiring groups I’ve found myself involved with on campus. I never get bored of talking about data management 101. It’s one of those topics that I think gets breezed over because people assume it’s too basic or already known but no – it’s the bread and butter. I’m convinced that everyone, myself included, needs a reminder about these concepts every six months! I was also excited because this was the very first slide deck where I included an image of a scrapbook layout (my data).
Last month my student assistant Elliott and I gave a talk in SLIS about data curation stuff. You know, this talk made me a little sad. We marketed specifically and heavily toward SLIS students and had two show up (plus a librarian and a professor). I mean, SLIS promoted it, Dorothea and Bronwen promoted to their classes; what else can be done? I feel bad griping because we had two students show up and I’m not trying to undervalue their presence. I was just underwhelmed. And can I be real and say I was a little annoyed? I came in with a thousand and one ideas about how I could work with current students, open doors for them the way doors were opened for me… and I’ve found that excitement quashed repeatedly.
Most recently, I presented as part of the RDS Holz brown bag series. This series was dormant for a while but we brought it back this spring. Attendance to these talks, too, has been dire. In particular, I thought that this talk, which brought together an associate university librarian plus two established librarians – would draw a broader audience. Sigh. The slides I link to below are just my portion of the talk on open data; you can find the complete slides in MINDS@UW.
“Hi, I’m Brianna and I’m the Digital Curation Coordinator.”
My job title is such that there’s no way I can get away without a little explanation. So today I thought I’d write about what my new job entails exactly. What does it mean to be a Digital Curation Coordinator? Am I a librarian? What do I do with my time?
(If you work in the digital scholarship realm, you already know the answer is messy.)
Technically, the classification for my job is that I am IT staff for the UW-Madison General Library System. According to my title, I’m not a librarian… but I am pretty much a librarian in practice: I work in a library, so funding and support for my initiatives comes from the library and I tap into my LIS background daily. Depending on the group I’m talking to, sometimes I’ll refer to myself as a data management librarian. It’s just easier.
The bulk of my position description falls under two categories: managing the institutional repository (25%) and building data management and curation services (70%) with an extra 5% thrown in for professional involvement.
Hats I’m wearing at this particular time include…
I am a sociologist. I decipher relationships, incentives, and organizational dynamics here at UW. When I think back on my English degree, the most important thing I took away was in terms of understanding audience and relating to other human beings. How does x character feel? What is the context? What is the action/reaction? This is really interesting to me. Learning how to work effectively with so many different people is hands down my favorite part of my job.
I am a therapist. The faculty, staff, and colleagues I talk to feel nervous about their digital stuff. They have so many other things to do, but they know their stuff is sitting there, vulnerable. They feel guilty that they aren’t sure what to do, especially since they’ve heard these scary terms “bit rot” and “media obsolescence” being thrown around. I come in and I listen. I think they can tell that I understand and agree: DIGITAL STUFF IS OVERWHELMING. We’re generating it so fast! It holds the same value but is so much less comfortable than the stacks of paper in the filing cabinet were. And we are all so busy already.
I can provide guidance but not much in the way of concrete, library-backed services – yet. But I’m gathering information. I’m taking the temperature. I’m gauging reactions. I’m learning about my community.
I explore options. I am encouraged to think creatively and to think BIG, then to bring that back to the reality of my university. The world of managing digital stuff is broad, shifting, and encompasses so many different needs and viewpoints. There’s nothing easy about it. I look at what my colleagues are doing or have done. I look at what UW’s peer institutions are doing or have done. I consider the particular setup of my institution and try to figure out how to make things happen here.
As a library student, I thought, “Well, just do it. Just do this cool thing that has already been figured out.” But now I get that every cool thing that is done was likely a battle, convincing and reshuffling and learning on everyone’s part. That’s the nature of getting work done in an institutional setting. It’s not inherently negative. It just is. There are people and parts to be corralled. Now it’s me trying to figure out what I can do to ease the process along. And honestly, I love it.
I’m managing the upgrade of our repository to DSpace 4.0 in the near future. Most of the technical know-how I’ve had to cultivate includes understanding the infrastructure: how servers are set up and how content is distributed among them. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about storage options and about DPN. But coding or tinkering? Nothing yet, not since graduating. This has probably been the most surprising thing: I thought I was taking on a techier role.
In no particular order, some things I’ve done these past few months:
And that’s about it. I’m learning things every day. It’s an exciting time!
I’m really pleased to share that I have accepted the position of Digital Curation Coordinator at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Starting in mid-June, I will be responsible for managing UW’s institutional repository and working across the university on data management and digital preservation issues. It is exactly the type of position I dreamed about when I first decided to pursue a career in library technology. I applied for jobs that dealt with many different facets of library work, from digitization to digital scholarship, and I don’t think I could have written a job description that I would enjoy more. Working with data is a fascinating and challenging undertaking.
UW is familiar to me and yet brand new at the same time. My parents live in a Madison suburb and both of my younger siblings attend UW, so me coming back to Madison will be somewhat of a family affair. I’m eager to experience the city as an adult.
When I was a senior in high school applying for college, I applied to UW-Madison as well as a few other state schools. I wasn’t really a high achiever; I was well-liked by my teachers and got mostly A’s with a few B’s but I wasn’t aiming for the honor roll. I journaled through most of my classes. I ended up getting waitlisted by UW, something that wasn’t a surprise necessarily but still gave me pause. My whole attitude changed when I got waitlisted because I recognized that it didn’t matter if I thought I was smart enough to attend UW-Madison. What mattered was proving it through tangible actions.
I went to UW-La Crosse, a state school, and had a fine time. I began exploring librarianship as a career. I applied for admission to the Midwestern library schools, finally narrowing it down to UW and IU. When I chose IU, I remember saying to my dad, “I want to be competitive for a job at UW when I graduate.” Now, strangely, that sentiment has become my reality. UW shaped my attitude about building a career so it feels like I’m coming full circle.
Going from being on the job hunt to suddenly not having to spend hours on application materials is blissful. I feel as though I’ve been given the gift of enjoying my last fleeting months here at IU. I will wrap up my classes and student jobs, travel, and spend time with my partner of seven years, who is moving to Nashville, TN, when I move to Madison. I’m also exploring ways to find a place within the digital curation community. There are lots of big changes coming up but I can truly say I couldn’t be happier.