Library life day two

Yesterday I neglected to include a link to what the Library Day in the Life Project is all about:

The Library Day in the Life Project is coordinated by Bobbi Newman of Librarian by Day. Twice a year librarians, library staff and library students from all over the globe share a day (or week) in their life through blog posts, photos, video and Twitter updates.

This site includes links to all the other people involved in the project:

http://twapperkeeper.com/hashtag/libday7
http://www.netvibes.com/librarianbyday#Round_6_Library_Day_in_the_Life_Project

I started the day conducting a data interview with one of our researchers in computer security.
This involved discussing several datasets the research centre holds that could possibly be shared with other researchers outside the centre. One dataset I heard about is what they call “honeypot” data that reveal patterns in security attacks. It was fascinating and I came away just a little bit worried about how secure any of us are online. Going by the laws of probability, despite our best efforts some malware will get through and do damage.

The data interview is one of the key roles of a research data librarian. The idea of the data interview is to gather as much information as possible about a research project and associated research dataset or data collection. This information (in our case) then gets written up and described and added to Research Data Australia (RDA) Australia's research data portal. The metadata schema used to described data in RDA is RIF-CS.

There are several elements to this work: one is using the skills a research or faculty librarian would have whereby you learn to understand the client’s research area. Another is having a sound understanding of research data and how that may differ across disciplines. Another is more a cataloguing/metadata librarian role whereby you use a defined metadata schema to describe the data.

I have been working on some research data training and seminars which I will talk about tomorrow…

Day in the life of a research data librarian

I had a late night last night, sitting up watching the conclusion of the Tour de France, witnessing history being made when Cadel Evans became the first ever Australian to win..…yeah go Cadel. It was so inspiring to see him cycling into Paris in the yellow jersey, with the BCM team all in red. With the 8 hour time difference between Europe and Western Australia the event finished after midnight our time. Then at 5am someone rang on my mobile…wrong number from someone in another time zone across the other side of the country. Still, I managed to start the day with a visit to the Joondalup Arena 50 metre indoor pool for a great swim. It’s winter here, so the pool is pretty quiet. At one stage there were just three of us with a lane to ourselves…bliss. The pool is about one kilometre from work, so I bring my breakfast and change of clothes and then head straight on to work.

At work the main activity today revolves around finish off the Seeding the Commons project. This is a national research data project funded by the ANDS (Australian National Data Service). The details about the project at Edith Cowan University (ECU) are here. There are similar projects running at most Australian universities and major research institutions.

This time last year I was getting ready to attend research data management training at the ANDS BootCamp which was held in Canberra in August 2010. Later on I was seconded to work on the project as a research data librarian. It has been a steep learning curve, but lot of fun. I have left my substantive job as the Faculty librarian for Education and Arts at ECU to become a research data librarian. Now, a year later, the project is winding up. We are at Week 25 of a 32 week project and the 3rd progress report is due on 12 August. More on this project and the work involved tomorrow.