Becoming a (Research) Data Librarian...the adventures of Broadley - Pt 2 - 13 May 2014
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Research Data Librarians7 / 13
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Virtual realityFaculty (division)Information managementInformationLibrary (computing)Inflection pointFerry CorstenMathematical analysisQuicksortPerformance appraisalNumberPurchasingVirtualizationLibrary (computing)Office suiteDegree (graph theory)Staff (military)InformationSoftware maintenanceSocial classStudent's t-testPersonal digital assistantSelectivity (electronic)Information technology consultingFaculty (division)Software developerComputer programmingTraffic reportingClient (computing)DivisorVideo gameOnline helpInformation managementLetterpress printingInternettelefonieAdditionShift operatorMultiplication signProcess (computing)Complete metric spaceGeneric programmingChannel capacityService (economics)AreaSheaf (mathematics)Uniform resource locatorCoordinate systemBuildingTelecommunicationElectronic mailing listEmailJSON
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Witt algebraVideoconferencingWebsiteYouTubeHypermediaException handlingInheritance (object-oriented programming)Strategy game2 (number)Computer animation
Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:00
We'll move straight on now to Philippa from the QUT. Thank you. Thanks Jerry. That was really, really good Kathy. I second a lot of the points that you've made in there, especially about how the role is ever changing. Today I'm just going to talk briefly about a few of the roles that I've had in the past and the skills I developed in those roles,
00:20
as well as talk about my more recent roles, which have been in research data management. I've included a photo, so if anyone wants to hook me up with a modelling agency, I'm all ears. But no, that's just so you can see who's on the other end of the headset. I've included a lot of detail about my various
00:41
roles in the hopes that people can recognise that sometimes there's more than one path to the one destination. I guess my career first sort of started out in what was traditionally called Reference Services, which is now called Learning and Research at QUT, before moving to where I am currently in our research support section.
01:01
So to start at the very beginning, my first library job, I've only worked at QUT and I've been here for about seven years now, but my first library job was as a virtual reference librarian, where I was providing assistance to students and staff via live chat, email, voice over internet protocol or VoIP and SMS. Next I had stint as a help desk librarian,
01:22
where my duties included in advising students and staff on document delivery issues, performing duties associated with lending and return of library material and also assisting students with their reference queries. After this, I was a lending services assistant. This meant that I performed the same duties as
01:41
when I was a help desk librarian, but I also shelved and assisted students to locate material on shelves, but I was paid less to do so. As reference librarian, I supported and contributed to my faculty liaison teams, first science and technology, then business in the three main areas of, firstly, information resource management.
02:02
So that included duties around collection, maintenance and resource evaluation. Secondly, research support. For example, I co-presented a number of bibliometric or citation analysis sessions as well as produced an impact factor report for selected science journals. And lastly, academic literacy.
02:21
So I was involved in the development and delivery of generic information literacy classes. This was all in addition to regularly scheduled shifts on the help desk and providing timetabling support as roster coordinator for the reference section. Soon after I acted for a year or so as a liaison librarian,
02:41
this role meant that I had to manage school allocated funds for the selection and purchase of material, as well as maintain print and electronic collections relevant to faculty, research and teaching learning needs. I liaised with academics to design, develop, promote and review client focused information
03:01
services, resources and programs such as QUT's capacity building for research workshops and information literacy classes. I also provided research support through individual consultations with teaching staff and high degree research students. Next, I was a library advisor as support officer.
03:21
During this time, I prepared and delivered classes in the advanced information research skills program to masters and PhD students. I marked assignments and I supported students in their completion of this course. In addition to roster time on help desk and working again within my faculty liaison team made up of liaison librarians and library advisors.
03:43
Lastly, and most recently, I was a library advisor known to many previously as a reference librarian. In this role, similar to my reference librarian role, I worked mainly with undergraduate students at the help desk, but also with them in one on one half hour consultations. Neither role involved me working with
04:01
postgraduate students or academic staff unless they sought assistance at the help desk. And in this role, I was often required to work late nights and weekends in the majority of my roles. So although the roles that I've just sort of described weren't directly related to any of the research management or research support roles that I've had,
04:20
there have been many skills that I've picked up along the way that I'm still developing today. I thought I would mention a few here and I would note that for each library related skill, there's also a life skill that I've learnt. So the first one is active listening, which I found quite a useful task.
04:41
Problem solving, customer service, as well as insight into the student experience, interpersonal skills, positive working relationships,
05:04
that happens a lot I have to say, planning skills, presentation or training skills, and time management or organisational
05:21
skills. So of course each of these skills has manifested themselves in more traditional ways than the ones I've mentioned here. So onto the research data management roles I've had. At the end of 2011, I was really lucky to be asked to undertake the inaugural role of data librarian. My role was to project manage the ANDS funded research data Australia
05:42
or RDA gold standard record exemplars project. This project went for ten months and during that time, myself and a colleague from QUT's high performance computing group contributed to the development of the national gold standard for RIF-CS metadata records that you can see in RDA today. Near the completion of this project,
06:01
I was asked by library management to lead a second ANDS funded project called the metadata stores project, which Cathy referred to. The main aim of this project was to develop and implement an integrated metadata repository or data registry that would promote the visibility and discoverability of QUT's research data sets. So this I think was possibly the
06:22
metadata store project was possibly the fourth ANDS funded project that QUT had undertaken. So I had plenty of people surrounding me who had some background information or experience in working on ANDS funded projects or even just research data management projects.
06:41
QUT's data registry is called Research Data Finder and I've put the URL on this slide in case anyone is interested in having a look after the webinar. Before managing these two projects, I have to say I was seriously underqualified for the role of research data librarian. I had no experience in managing large scale projects except for an assignment at uni.
07:01
I'd never used a metadata schema to describe anything and the only schema I'd heard of was Dublin Core. I'd never even heard of ANDS, I'm sorry to say, let alone thought about the concept of research data management. I knew researchers produced data and they were probably pretty good at looking after it but that was perhaps a bit naive of myself.
07:21
I spent a lot of time at the start of the gold standard project just familiarizing myself with the jargon associated with ANDS and with research data, as well as the RISC-S schema. I never truly felt like I was performing well in my role until well into the second or metadata store project. I guess the feeling of uncertainty can be present with any new job
07:42
but for me, sometimes the pace at which the area of research data management evolves can leave me feeling like I've never quite got on top of things. But again, that's what makes the role so exciting and challenging. Shortly after the ANDS projects ended, an ongoing role of part-time
08:01
research data librarian was created at QUT. So I applied for the position and won it in June last year. Because I had previously held a full-time ongoing role as library advisor, that role was split in two. So my substantive or permanent roles are 18.125 hours a week as research data librarian and
08:21
18.125 hours a week as library advisor. And yes, those extra seven and a half minutes are counted. Duties that I perform in my role as research data librarian include the following. I'm responsible for coordinating the library's processes and services to identify, make accessible research data sets
08:41
produced by the QUT research community. I coordinate the library's external research data set service. So that's where I procure and provide access to externally sourced research data sets, mainly or only for staff and high degree research students. A big part of my role is advocating good data management practices,
09:01
as well as working with other staff in the technology information and learning support division at QUT. We're working quite hard to have a joined-up or a seamless, centralized research data management support service for
09:20
researchers. I also contribute to the maintenance development of research data management infrastructure, including our guidelines for managing research data, as well as our data management checklist. A big part of my role is also providing in-kind support to research data management projects that we have underway
09:41
within QUT library, and they've just recently started. I would like to mention the team that I work within. So I work within the research support team, and it's made up of four ongoing positions. We have research data librarian, scholarly communications librarian, university copyright officer,
10:00
and the research support coordinator. So there are four fixed-term project roles as well, and one part-time library advisor position that provides administrative support to the team. Each person within the team has a specific role, and there's not a lot of crossover between the roles, which means that we cover a large number of disciplines within such a small team,
10:20
where other institutions may have more people. However, I find that having sole responsibility for an area means that we quickly become specialists within our own library environment. And of course, each team member is willing to provide assistance or support to the others when necessary. As I've mentioned previously, my role as library advisor
10:41
predominantly includes assisting undergraduate students through rusted time on the help desk and providing information, research, and teaching and learning support to the liaison librarians. I don't have direct involvement with postgraduate students or academic staff and research support, including research data management services.
11:01
That's a very small part of that library advisor role. They're not complementary roles, library advisor and research data librarian. In a way, my two part-time roles allow me to experience the best of both worlds. So teaching and learning from the library advisor side and research support from the research data librarian side.
11:21
So that was for about seven months last year that I was doing those two roles. And it was hard, splitting my time between the two different roles, two different desks, two different teams, and having to say no or I don't have time to do that many times over. But I absolutely loved it. I loved it. So that's just some of the roles I've had previously.
11:41
Currently, instead of my permanent library advisor position, I'm working as a project coordinator for the electronic research notebook implementation project. And I really have to second what Cathy said about project work in this space. It's a great opportunity to learn new skills and to just be involved in projects sort
12:02
of at the forefront, you know, ever-changing sort of research data management sphere. So my specific duties include working with researchers and software vendors to trial, at the moment we're only trialling one electronic notebook system with our Institute of Future Environments and our
12:20
Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation. And we're looking to implement one or more within multiple research laboratories at QUT. One thing coming up that I have to admit that I have no experience with is a request for offer or tender process. And we'll need to undertake that to select and purchase
12:44
electronic research notebook systems for QUT. So the skills and knowledge that I think are required to working within the research data management area include a working knowledge of information management systems and that includes digital repository systems,
13:02
knowledge of the developments in research data management. We've certainly had quite a few changes recently and staying up to date with those is very important when you're talking with researchers. Knowledge of metadata schemas as well. So what they're used for, how to use them and how to
13:20
use them for quality control purposes as well. I think interpersonal communication skills, they're very important especially if you're dealing a lot with external stakeholders. So for me that was researchers as well as professional staff at QUT. Project management, planning, problem solving and organisational skills
13:41
definitely are a big one as well as the ability to work on your own and in a team. Having some experience with developing training courses and providing support to researchers is great if you have it but that's something
14:00
that you can develop on the go. And written communication skills or reporting skills I found were a big, something that I have developed quite a lot over the last few years I would say. So that's it for me Jerry. Thanks for this opportunity to let me tell everyone about
14:21
what I do. It's many paths to the one destination. Thank you so much. Thank you so much Philippa. That's fantastic and another really interesting journey and I guess a nice seconding of some of the skills and experiences that Cathy's also
14:40
mentioned as well. So thanks Philippa and we'll hand over now to David Groenewegen.