Data Engagement for the Data-Hesitant Librarian

In today’s library settings, there is an increasing focus on data skills and data literacy. In fact, many library job seekers, particularly librarians, consider data skills a ticket to success. With technical advances in cataloging, metadata and systems librarianship, library involvement with research data management, growing sophistication and scope of library assessment work, and analytical enhancements in the fields of digital humanities and digital literacies, data-related competencies are more central to librarians’ activities than ever. Library leaders now encourage widespread acquisition of data skills in order to have a corps of data-savvy librarians. But what happens to the data-hesitant librarian in this scenario? While data literacy is seen as a universal good and universally attainable, data-related training often assumes competency levels that are above the “rank beginner” status advertised. Librarians may not feel that data applies to their discipline or work flow. They may also self-identify as “non-data people”, often with attendant shame around that fact. This means that for any push towards data-savviness, there are both librarians who resist, whatever the reasons for their hesitation, and librarians who want to engage but have barriers/uncertainty around beginning. The questions included in this presentation will be: how to engage these librarians (and staff) with data? Can we? Must we? Should we? An outline of critical data literacy will be followed by suggestions for how to engage “non-data” librarians with data training and activities in the library setting. The issues of how feasible/desirable it is to expect universal data-savviness, and how to empower librarians to choose their own approaches to the issue, both in the workplace and in their career planning, will be addressed. Finally we’ll discuss training approaches and resources. Attendees will leave with ideas for implementing inclusive data initiatives in their settings.