From 18-26 May 2019, a team of four staff members from the Library and Information Service visited four institutions in the United States of America (USA). The purpose of the visits was to engage with libraries which have an established and substantial research data management (RDM) offering. Engagement with librarians in the USA who are working with researchers in terms of RDM services, training users, managing data repositories and are involved with various other RDM related activities, should provide essential insights and allow the Library to learn from their best practices.
The staff who participated in the visits were: Ellen Tise (Senior Director: Library and Information Service), Mimi Seyffert-Wirth (Deputy Director: Digital Scholarship), Samuel Simango (Manager: Research Data Services) and Marié Theron (Faculty Librarian: Science & AgriSciences). The four institutions visited were: The University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Purdue University, Carnegie Mellon University and University of California (Berkeley and California Digital Library).
The ultimate objective of the visits was to achieve proposed outcomes of the Library’s RDM strategic actions, which include the following:
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- Librarians who are familiar with data management planning, data collection, processing and analysis, as well as data sharing, dissemination, curation and re-use;
- Preservation of and access to institutional research data;
- Insight into the role of researchers and the decisions they have to make regarding RDM.
Some of the many insights gained from the visits include:
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- Libraries played a leading role in the establishment of research data services (RDS) on campus.
- RDS is integrated within the entire university community.
- RDS is a collaborative project between librarians, RDS partners and the academic community.
- Consultation and engagement with clients is crucial.
- Different types of data exist: raw data (size/sensitivity varies), processed data and analyzed data (repository); infrastructure and types of data can be matched.
- The Library should proceed with the implementation of RDS, based on a long-term (multi-year) roadmap (objectives, outcomes, actions, deliverables and target dates/phases).
After the informative visits, key library staff members were invited to an RDM session on 19 June to develop a roadmap for RDM at the Library and Information Service, Stellenbosch University.