Through the web of library catalogs, library management systems and myriad digital resources, libraries have become repositories not only for physical and digital information resources but also for enormous amounts of data about the interactions between these resources and their users. Bringing together leading practitioners and academic voices, this book aims to consider library catalogue data as a research resource.
Separated into four sections, the book discusses a range of topics surrounding library information and data, including:
- practical routes to preparing library catalogue data for researchers;
- the ethics of library metadata privacy and reuse;
- data interoperability across library systems;
- data and collections bias;
- library-vendor relationships and data licensing;
- the practical and theoretical issues inherent in reimagining administrative, usage, and bibliographic data as a research resource; and
- scholarship that responds to the possibilities of library data.
Dr. Paul Gooding is a Senior Lecturer in Information Studies at the University of Glasgow. A trained librarian with a background in Media Librarianship, his research explores the theoretical and practical impact of large-scale digitization in the cultural heritage sector. Gooding currently serves on the Digital Preservation Coalition's Workforce Development Sub-Committee, and the Academic Advisory Board for the British Library Heritage Made Digital Newspaper Digitisation programme. He previously founded and directed the UEA Digital Humanities incubator, and has a track record of leading funded research projects with major research and national libraries in the UK and US.
Prof. Melissa Terras is the Professor of Digital Cultural Heritage at the University of Edinburgh's College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, leading digital aspects of CAHSS research as Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Data, Culture and Society, and is Director of Research in the Edinburgh Futures Institute. Gooding and Terras have collaborated on a previous edited volume, entitled Electronic Legal Deposit: Shaping the Library Collections of the Future.
Dr. Sarah Ames is Digital Scholarship Librarian at the National Library of Scotland, with responsibility for the Library's Digital Scholarship Service and Data Foundry. She is a member of the LIBER DH Working Group core group, where she co-chairs the Research Collaborations group, RLUK Digital Scholarship Network, and the Alan Turing Institute Humanities and Data Science group. Sarah has a PhD in English Literature from the University of Edinburgh; her PhD thesis was shortlisted for the Saltire Literary Awards 2013. Alongside this, she has postgraduate qualifications in Library and Information Science and in Data Science.
