The State of Education for Data Curation and Librarianship

Funding agencies increasingly require detailed plans for data management, sharing, and archiving during the grant submission process. Researchers may lack the knowledge required to design and implement a feasible plan for long term storage and secondary analysis of their data, such as technical specifications, metadata standards, and archival challenges pertinent to the types of data they will collect. Librarians, information specialists, and grants compliance administrators in university settings are the natural partners of these researchers; however, these partners may also lack the necessary expertise in managing the data lifecycle. This paper will report the extent to which programs in schools of library and information science (LIS) are formally preparing students for positions in data curation and data librarianship. The results of a content analysis (currently in progress) of North American LIS program websites (iSchools caucus members and American Library Association-accredited programs) will be presented. This presentation will offer a comprehensive snapshot of the courses, certifications, tracks of study, centers/institutes, and grant-funded initiatives that are currently available to those who wish to work in data curation, in the hopes of initiating a conversation about the skills and knowledge needed by data professionals and how LIS programs can help to prepare them.