Abstract
To inform the development of data management services, a library research team at Kent State University conducted a survey of all tenured, tenure-track, and non-tenure track faculty about their data management practices and perceptions. The methodology and results will be presented in the article, as well as how this information was used to inform future work in the library’s internal working group. Recommendations will be presented that other academic libraries could model in order to develop similar services at their institutions. Personal anecdotes are included that help ascertain current practices and sentiments around research data from the perspective of the researcher. The article addresses the particular needs of a large Midwestern U.S. academic campus, which are not currently reflected in literature on the topic.
Highlights
Researchers are increasingly required to develop plans for long-term data management and sharing, oftentimes in the U.S by mandate of grant directives such as NEH, NSF and others
Our survey items addressed data management from collection to long-term storage and/or destruction, yet we perceive from write-in answers and follow-up consultations that many respondents were focussed on data practices and sharing among research team members
The survey conducted at Kent State gave the University Libraries a starting place to defne current needs at the institution and has led to the creation of a crossdepartmental working group to address these needs
Summary
Researchers are increasingly required to develop plans for long-term data management and sharing, oftentimes in the U.S by mandate of grant directives such as NEH, NSF and others. Data management and related activities are skill sets that are not always inherent ones to many researchers. Certain librarian positions within digital library and institutional repository initiatives, for example, require skill sets in digital media management and overarching digital preservation knowledge. We believe that the library is well positioned to be leaders on this topic and provide relevant consultation and services to support these endeavors. In early 2017, Kent State University Libraries formally addressed expanding consultation services to include data management through a new internal working group. The working group included members of reference, instruction, institutional repository, technical services, and digital projects. A team of three librarians from the working group conducted a survey during the Fall of 2017 to investigate research data management issues and practices at the institution
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