Please consider attending this fast-approaching event!
Next Generation Science Librarianship Panel presentation hosted by National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Library November 17, 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. Location: Foothills Lab-2, Room 1001
The introduction of technology has had disruptive effects in all facets of society and the conduct of science has proved to be no exception. With the application of distributed computer networking and processing capability, a new type of science is emerging--known as eScience--which is changing the types and scale of information resources that scientists are creating and working with on a daily basis. The challenge to the role of the science librarian operating to support scientists at their institutions is complex: existing forms of science publishing have largely moved online, but remained intact. Discussions about economics models and digital rights focus on the proper access to journal articles to ensure scientific progress and communication of results to society. Meanwhile, attention is starting to shift away from the materials librarians are used to supporting, towards data sets and other digital objects originating from the technical, practical environment of eScience. The librarian largely lacks access and experience in this environment, yet the need for their information management expertise grows ever more apparent to prevent these resources from overwhelming the scientists' daily workload. Just as with scientific articles, these resources should also be made available to a broader community as part of scientific progress.
This event will highlight solutions in developing skills and products appropriate for this changing, highly technical environment of eScience. It is also to bring together participants from different types of libraries and from librarianship education to engage in a discussion about the needed skillset, project designs, and service approaches for successful information resource management solutions that support scientists' research efforts. Following the discussion, a reception will be held to allow for more informal conversation.
Panelists: Dr. Jian Qin Associate Professor and Advisor for the Certificate for Advanced Studies in Digital Libraries School of Information Studies Syracuse University Syracuse, N.Y.
Training New Types of Information Professionals for New Forms of Information Work: It's About Skills and Products The IMLS-funded eScience Librarianship (eslib.ischool.syr.edu) project is a three-year effort to train an initial cohort of librarians with the skills needed to work alongside researchers from the full range of disciplines representing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Eight students with STEM-education and professional experience were selected to enroll in a funded masters degree in LIS program. At the same time, three special courses are being developed to give them skills in data management as an information resource crucial to eScience, as well as courses to train them in both collaborative technologies and scientific workflows, as well as project management to pull together eScience Librarianship services. Advanced products that require these same skills are being explored in another project, with support from Syracuse University doctoral student Miao Chen. A small-scale experiment using linked-entity metadata records converted entities and their relationships into an interlinked semantic web of ecological datasets for the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study (HBES) covering the Northeast of the U.S. The experiment suggests a methodological feasibility in incorporating linked entity data into metadata records to enhance access to scientific data.
Jamaica Jones Special Projects Librarian NCAR Library
Supporting Scientific Communication: The Case of OpenSky With this year's launch of OpenSky, the institutional repository serving UCAR, NCAR, and the UCAR Community Programs, the NCAR Library has expanded capability to support the institution's role in providing facilities, research, models, and tools that advance atmospheric and geoscience on a global scale. The repository was designed to advance NCAR research while also providing access to articles by the UCAR community as well as scientists, educators, and students worldwide. Pursuing this goal required the coordinated efforts of staff with diverse skills and management expertise. Examples from the repository's introduction and refinement highlight the new roles of the science librarian amid the changing landscape of scholarly communication.
Jack M. Maness Assistant Professor and Director of the Engineering and Math-Physics Libraries University of Colorado at Boulder
Using Design Personas to Understand the Role of Academic Libraries in Supporting e-Science Two recent ethnographic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder have identified several "personas" that librarians can use while making decisions about the content and functionality needed in institutional repositories and data archives. Scientists working in tenure-track academic institutions often have disparate backgrounds, needs, and goals, and these studies utilize structured interviews, observations, and analytic methodologies in human-computer interaction and user-centered design disciplines to articulate these seemingly divergent needs and levels of receptivity to third-party involvement in data curation and scholarly communications.
For more information: John D'Ignazio 303.497.1186 dignazio (at) ucar.edu
Speaker Bios:
Jian Qin has been a Library and Information Science (LIS) professor for nearly fifteen years, researching and teaching in the areas of knowledge modeling and organization, ontologies, metadata, Web content management, and scientific communication. Her recent publications based on this research have appeared in the journals Library Metadata, American Society for Information Science & Technology, and Scholarly Publishing. Her 2008 book Metadata, coauthored with Dr. Marcia Zeng, serves as the definitive textbook for learning about and applying metadata in diverse information organization and representation contexts. In the past four years she has served as principal investigator on projects funded by both the National Science Foundation and the Institute for Museum and Library Services related to science information skill education to prepare professionals for the digital age. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, her M.L.I.S from University of Western Ontario, and her B.A. from Wuhan University.
Jamaica Jones helped to facilitate the passage of UCAR's Open Access policy, lead the development of OpenSky, and also is working to implement other initiatives that advance scholarship and scientific communication across the atmospheric and geosciences. Jamaica came to NCAR by way of New York, where she worked to develop a digital archive at the National September 11 Memorial Museum. She holds an M.A. from New York University, and a B.A. from Antioch College.
Jack M. Maness is the author of several articles on the evolving virtual and physical spaces and services academic libraries provide students and faculty. He is active in the Science & Technology Section of the Association of College & Research Libraries, as well as the Engineering Libraries Division of the American Society for Engineering Education, and is a manuscript referee for the journals Webology and College & Research Libraries. The American Library Association awarded him the Marshal Cavendish Scholarship in 2002 and named him an Emerging Leader in 2008. He holds an M.L.S from Emporia State University and a B.A. from the University of Colorado.