EDITOR'S NOTES
Data, Data Everywhere
by Dick Kaser
When I called for papers on data management in libraries in 2015, I only got a few proposals. Go figure, because data has been a big subject inside and outside of classic research communities. This year, when I repeated the call, so much interest was expressed—and I got so excited at the prospects—that I booked twice as many articles as we could publish in this issue.
For libraries, the “data” challenge has many aspects, but there are three topics that often crop up:
- Public data repositories that represent large, searchable factual data collections
- Research data depositories—increasingly required by research funding agencies—to archive the data on which published research is based
- Data about and for libraries; data to inform stakeholders, improve services, and perfect professional methods
This issue touches on it all—from national data archives to local website data analytics. And you’ll be reading more and more in the months ahead, as I’ve not only needed to defer the publication of some pieces to future issues, but there seems to be no end in sight to contributors’ interest in writing on the subject.
In the brave new world of Big Data and the Internet of Things (IoT), librarians are emerging as data curation experts, data preservation advocates, and data literacy proponents. Some of you may even aspire to become data scientists. If you would like to share what you’re doing with data in your library, don’t hesitate to write. Proposals for articles on these and other libtech subjects are always welcome at infotoday.com/cilmag.
Dick Kaser, Executive Editor
kaser@infotoday.com
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