Research Data Management

It has become increasingly accepted that important digital data must be retained and shared in order to preserve and promote knowledge, advance research in and across all disciplines of scholarly endeavor, and maximize the return on investment of public funds. To meet this challenge, colleges and universities are adding data services to existing infrastructures by drawing on the expertise of information professionals who are already involved in the acquisition, management and preservation of data in their daily jobs. Data services include planning and implementing good data management practices, thereby increasing researchers’ ability to compete for grant funding and ensuring that data collections with continuing value are preserved for reuse. This volume provides a framework to guide information professionals in academic libraries, presses, and data centers through the process of managing research data from the planning stages through the life of a grant project and beyond. It illustrates principles of good practice with use-case examples and illuminates promising data service models through case studies of innovative, successful projects and collaborations.

Joyce Ray teaches digital preservation and digital curation in the Johns Hopkins University graduate museum studies program. She is currently a visiting professor in the University College London Department of Information Studies. From 1997 to 2011 she was Associate Deputy Director for Library Services at the Institute of Museum and Library Services in Washington, DC, where she directed competitive grant programs that awarded more than $40 million annually for innovative research, practice and education in library services and related topics. She previously held positions at the US National Archives and Records Administration and the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio Library. She has both an MLS and a PhD in history from the University of Texas at Austin.