—There’s a new ALA/ACRL Listserv for Data Minded Types: Digital Curation Interest Group. I’ve signed on and hope to find lots of interesting things to share with you! (Thanks Dorothea!)

—Have you been reading the International Journal of Digital Curation? If not, the most recent issue has lots of Data focused peer reviewed papers, including impact of data, talking to researchers, linking issues, and goals once we get beyond managing our own data.

—Are you doing interesting things with data? The Journal of Web Librarianship would like to hear from you! They have a forthcoming special issue on Data Curation. Manuscripts are due January 1, 2012, though hopefully you won’t be burning the midnight oil on New Year’s Eve finishing your paper. This is a peer reviewed journal published by Taylor and Francis.

—Trying to figure out what to do with data once you’ve got it? Check out FlowingData, which shows a lot of interesting data visualizations.  Check out their Beginner’s Guide for the best of and a little more about them.

—-From the White House Blog: The United States Releases its Open Government National Action Plan.  There’s not a lot in the press release, but if you look at the entire plan data, particularly Data.gov, comes up a lot. I saw the phrase “data driven” several times. Is that the new catch phrase (ala Evidence Based Practice for Medicine/Nursing/Dentistry/et al)?

  • 2. Data Availability.
    As agencies developed their Open Government Plans, they made unprecedented amounts of
    information available and easily accessible to the public, in part through a centralized government platform, Data.gov.
    This platform, designed in large part to provide people with information that they can readily find and use, now gives
    the public access to over 390,000 high value agency data sets on such diverse subjects as auto safety, air travel, air
    quality, workplace safety, drug safety, nutrition, crime, obesity, employment, and health care. (page 2)
  • 5. Enforcement and Compliance Data.
    The President issued a memorandum on January 18, 2011 requiring Federal enforcement agiences to make publicly-available compliance information easily accessible, downloadable and searchable online. (Page 2)
  • 2. Use Data.gov as a Platform to Spur Innovation
    The U.S. champions the publication of machine-readable data and the use of challenges, prizes, and competitions
    to catalyze breakthroughs in national priorities. The Data.gov site supplies the public with large amounts of useful,
    machine-readable government data that can be used by innovators without intellectual property constraint. (Page 7)
  • Publish Guidelines on Scientific Data.
    We will develop Federal guidelines to promote the preservation,
    accessibility, and interoperability of scientific digital data produced through unclassified research supported
    wholly or in part by funding from the Federal science agencies. (Page 9) <—This one could definitely impact scientists vying for all of those NIH, NSF, etc grants and I think will grow very much out of whatever best practices we’re starting to see from the NSF Data Management Plans.  Do your professors know about this? 

Want to work in/with data?

  • Digital Data Outreach Librarian at Washington University in Saint Louis, MO.  Does it get more data than this?  Check here(number 22611) for the full details. Their medical school is hiring some data analysts as well, I see.
  • Metadata Specialist at Purdue University .  Pull quote ” this position will help develop new approaches to describing and managing research data and other digital collections. “
  • Digital Formats and Metadata Librarian at UNC-Wilmington. From their job ad, “This position will provide and enhance metadata for digital materials as well as….will work with the Coordinator of Cataloging and other library departments in the planning, development, and implementation of library digitization projects, including metadata creation, hosting, and archiving, and provision of access to digital and electronic collections; assist in evaluating and documenting policies, procedures and workflows for areas of responsibility;”
  • Digital Library Architect at Los Alamos National Laboratory Research Library : Couple of things from the job requirements: “Expert knowledge of standard web programming tools/frameworks, database application development, content and data management, hardware and systems programming technologies and storage management. Demonstrated experience and commitment to designing and developing resource-centric applications that adhere to core architectural principles of the Web. Demonstrated experience with using mainstream Web 2.0 technologies. Ongoing interest in Semantic Web technologies and concepts including RDF and Linked Open Data.”

Have you seen a data librarianship ad? Please send it my way, I’d love to include it!