13 February 2009ESDS – whats in it for librarians? Royal Statistical Society The strange case of the local data librarian - a peculiarly Edinburgh perspective! Stuart Macdonald EDINA National Data Centre - Edinburgh University Data Library -

13 February 2009ESDS – whats in it for librarians? Royal Statistical Society Overview Definition EDINA National Data Centre Edinburgh University Data Library Data Library Services ESDS Expertise DISC-UK International Perspective

13 February 2009ESDS – whats in it for librarians? Royal Statistical Society A data library refers to both the content and the services that foster use of collections of numeric and/or geospatial data sets for secondary use in research. A data library is normally part of a larger institution (academic, corporate, scientific, medical, governmental, etc.) established to serve the data users of that organisation. The data library tends to house local data collections and provides access to them through various means (CD-ROMS/DVDs or central server for download). A data library may also maintain subscriptions to licensed data resources for its users to access. A Data Library defined by:

13 February 2009ESDS – whats in it for librarians? Royal Statistical Society EDINA & University Data Library (EUDL) EDINA and University Data Library (EUDL) together are a division within Information Services of the University of Edinburgh. EDINA is a JISC-funded National Data Centre providing national online resources for education and research. The Data Library assists Edinburgh University users in the discovery, access, use and management of research datasets.

13 February 2009ESDS – whats in it for librarians? Royal Statistical Society Mission statement:..to enhance the productivity of research, learning and teaching in UK higher and further education.. Networked access to a range of online resources for UK FE and HE Services free at the point of use for use by staff and students in learning, teaching and research through institutional subscription Focus is on service but also undertake R&D (projects services) delivers about 20 online services has about 10 major projects (including services in development) employs about 75 staff (Edinburgh & St Helens) EDINA National Data Centre

13 February 2009ESDS – whats in it for librarians? Royal Statistical Society Edinburgh University Data Library - first such service in the UK, started in 1983 Primarily within social sciences Data Collection covering: Large scale government surveys Macro-economic time series Financial time series Population census data Geospatial data Specialised in data for Scotland and GIS Teaching and (JISC-funded) projects Institutional representative for national data services

13 February 2009ESDS – whats in it for librarians? Royal Statistical Society Finding… Match research topic to data resources such as surveys, censuses, databases and provide information on other libraries, archives, government agencies Accessing … Assist with registration and acquisition of data from national data services such as ESDS. Demonstrate custom interfaces to download data or provide files online / on disk. Data Library Services

13 February 2009ESDS – whats in it for librarians? Royal Statistical Society Using … Interpret codebooks and online documentation, help choose variables to use in analysis, or customise users data in e.g. Excel, SPSS. Assist with importing of spatial data into GIS for thematic mapping. Merge and match users data with recognised Sources such as NSPD, deprivation scores. Managing … Advise on storing, versioning, documenting, anonymising and formatting researchers data so that it can be shared or preserved for future use in an archive or repository (e.g. Edinburgh DataShare)

13 February 2009ESDS – whats in it for librarians? Royal Statistical Society ESDS Expertise ESDS User Guides Accessing IMF International Financial Statistics via Beyond 20/20 WDS Guide to British Household Panel Survey Analysis and methods guides How to use statistical analysis guides Online Data Services guides Exploring data online using the ESDS Nesstar Catalogue Preservation & sharing guidelines RELU data management plan New UKDA manage and share data section Good practice in data documentation

13 February 2009ESDS – whats in it for librarians? Royal Statistical Society DISC-UK (Data Information Specialists Committee – UK) - a forum for data professionals working in UK Higher Education who specialise in supporting their institution's staff and students in the use of numeric and geo-spatial data Edinburgh University Data Library Oxford Data Library (Nuffield College) LSE Data Library & Research Laboratory Data Service Southampton University Library JISC-funded DISC-UK DataShare project Investigate the legal, cultural and technical issues surrounding research data sharing within UK tertiary education community

13 February 2009ESDS – whats in it for librarians? Royal Statistical Society International Perspective IASSIST – International Association for Social Science information Service and Technology - CESSDA - Council of European Social Science Data Archive gateway to European social science data ICPSR – Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research - IFDO - International Federation of Data Organizations -

13 February 2009ESDS – whats in it for librarians? Royal Statistical Society THANK YOU! Washed out Images: Daniel Kohns Photostream from Flickr