Empowering Librarians in the Provision of Data Services in Canada: A Case Study of the DLI Survival Guide

ABSTRACT

While some Canadian universities have a long history in the provision of data services, that was not the norm in Canada, especially in small universities and colleges. To maximize the use of data by students and researchers in academia, it was evident that increased education, resources, and tools were required to support those delivering data services on their campuses. To this end, the Data Liberation Initiative (DLI) Survival Guide was designed as a comprehensive reference tool, which complements an established regional training curriculum, whereby enabling librarians to effectively fulfill their role as a DLI Contact in their academic institutions. This case study will examine the history, current state, and recommended future direction of the Survival Guide. This article will also examine the challenges in understanding the drivers shaping academic service delivery and the ways in which the guide has evolved to remain current to the needs of the Canadian data community.

KEYWORDS:

• Data literacy
• data services
• program evaluation
• professional development
• training

Declaration of interest

This article has not been published elsewhere and it has not been submitted simultaneously for publication elsewhere.

Notes

¹ When an institution joins the program, a local DLI Contact is identified and serves as the primary liaison between the program and their institution's data users.

² p. 298, 2014 ACRL Report.

³ The Tri-Agency consists of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

⁴ p. 1, Johnson, Adams, Estrada & Freeman (2014).

⁵ Joint Task Force is a collaborative effort by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL), the Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER), and the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR).

⁶ For more information on the history of the DLI, see Boyko and Watkins (2011).

⁷ This committee replaced the Education Committee in 2016.

⁸ The DLI Training Repository is hosted at the Carleton University Digital Objects (CUDO) Repository and is open to the world.

⁹ A DLI Designate is the primary back up of the DLI Contact at their respective institution.

¹⁰ GCcollab is a cloud-based collaborative tool developed by the Canadian federal government and is aimed at academics, students and federal public servants across Canada.