Tag Archives: data management

The $64,000 Question (Odds and Ends)

27 Feb

My week of birthday celebration is behind me now and what a week it was, filled with a party and a holiday and a lecture to a data management class and a professional group board meeting. One is hard-pressed to complain about a full, fulfilling life. Thanks to all of my friends and colleagues near and far who helped me celebrate well.

The full schedule left me with a bunch of notes in my notebooks, things that I don’t have the time to expound upon right now, but I want to offer as “odds and ends,” in case you might find something useful in any/all of them.

First, the word of the week appears to be EMPATHY. It’s come up in two different books that I’m reading; Dan Pink’s, To Sell is Human, and Lee Lefever’s, The Art of Explanation. I recommend both, by the way. Pink’s book offers advice on moving people, getting them to buy what you’re selling – a service, an idea, or an area of expertise. Lefever’s is about… well, it’s pretty self-explanatory … the art of explaining things to people. It’s an art, he argues, and thus something that we can learn to do. For both of the author’s, a significant key to success in these areas is empathy. Being able to put one’s self in the mind and shoes of another helps to get our point across.

It seems a pretty good message for me as I seek to find my place on research teams. The better I understand the people that I’m trying to sell on the idea that they could use an informationist on their team, the better my argument will be. Likewise, the better I can explain what the heck an informationist is in the first place, the better I’ll not appear to them as an alien from the planet Librarius.

I have the opportunity to give a lecture next week to students in our graduate program in Clinical Investigation. It’s a course on Team Science and the faculty member teaching it said to me, “You’re always going on about how it’s important to have an informationist on the team. Come teach my class one day.” It goes without saying that I’m working up my empathetic nature so that I can both explain and sell this group of clinicians and researchers on the idea. Stay tuned for a report of how well I do.

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I really enjoyed giving a lecture last week to the students taking the Data Management Planning class in Simmons College’s GSLIS program. It’s a small class and the majority of students are auditing it, as they are already professionals working in the field. We had a great discussion about the skills one needs to find success as an embedded librarian. I’ve posted my slides from the lecture to my Slideshare account. As you might imagine, they are more visual in nature than textual, but you may be able to get something from them.


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On my embedded days, when I’m not in meetings, I often search out a quiet spot somewhere on campus (not in the Library) where I can work uninterrupted. We have a new research building on campus and during this transition time when people are slowly moving in to the new lab spaces and the cafeteria has yet to open, there are many good places that fit the bill. Yesterday morning I was sitting in what will eventually be a bustling lunch area, preparing for the weekly team meeting, when a few students came and sat at a nearby table. Recalling an assignment that I once had for a writing class, I eavesdropped on their conversation and took a few notes. They looked like this:

Conversation

Ignore the “Also overheard…” bit in red. I just found that really funny and worth a doodle. No matter how new an HVAC system, it seems we just can’t help but complain about the temperature in a room. Must be encoded in our DNA.

No, the part I want you to notice is what I heard the students saying AND the question it prompted me to write. I don’t have an answer for them. Do you? Is a plan the same thing as a solution? If I went up to them and talked to them about creating a plan for managing their data, would this be helpful? I’m not sure and my lack of sureness left me with the question, “Have we got a solution we can offer?” As you note, it could be “masterful,” if we can create it. (By the way, that was a quote from one of the students. Not my word.)

EDITORIAL: A Colleague emailed me after I first posted this, telling me that my notes didn’t make sense. He was right. Here’s a bit of clarification – They said, “I could have saved a whole day of work if there were standards and consistency in file formats.” Then one said, “That’s a masterful idea if there is a master table.” But such a table doesn’t exist and they don’t have time to go back and make one now. Do we have a solution for them that helps them now or can we just make suggestions for the future?

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Finally, I’ve been looking for a tool that will help me keep my projects and tasks and ideas and such in order. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to trade in my notebooks. (As a matter of fact, I got a fresh supply of Field Notes journals on Sunday, courtesy of my wonderful spouse.) No, pen and paper and doodling will remain a staple for me, but I need an online tool to help me organize a working schedule and working demands that aren’t quite as routine as they once were. Yesterday, I stumbled across Curio 8 and downloaded the free 25-day trial to my Mac laptop. In a word, “Whoa!!”  It’s pretty rare nowadays to find something that you can figure out how to use in about 10 minutes. It’s not a high-powered project management tool, but that’s probably to its advantage for me right now. I don’t need a lot of bells and whistles, but rather something that I can put into use quickly and easily. I have a feeling this is it. Is anyone out there using it? If so, I’d love to hear your feedback before I decide on purchasing. It’s not overly expensive ($100), but I like hearing from others before putting my money down.

That’s it for this week’s check-in. Oh! Except to say that I realized this morning that you can enlarge the font size on an iPad to make reading an ebook on it easier. Is this a new feature? Nah… but my 50 year old eyes are!

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Apples and Oranges

28 Nov

Funny Aside: I was reading some articles on Monday and, while doing so, jotted down the phrase “comparing apples to oranges” in the small notebook that I carry around for just such note-jotting. It was a seed for this week’s post that I wrote there to hopefully germinate into a full-fledged thought. Thus, I found it quite funny yesterday when one of the co-PIs of the project I’m working on said, in a completely different context, “This isn’t comparing apples to oranges. It’s comparing apples to … humus!” Though totally unrelated to anything I’d thought of writing about, I figured it a good sign that I was on to a good title. I’m going with it.

I bought two books on metadata yesterday. Personal books for my personal collection. I’ve borrowed several books on the subject over the past few months as I’ve tried to get a better understanding on the subject of metadata – what it is, how it works, and why it’s important in information systems. I know the answers to these questions in theory, of course, but I lack the nitty gritty. I needed to buy some books so that I could write in them, like most of my old textbooks of the past. Fulfillment of the tasks that I’m given as an informationist isn’t going to happen in theory. This is where the rubber hits the road, so to speak. I need to know how to analyze metadata requirements, select and/or develop necessary schema, create a controlled vocabulary, and ensure that what I come up with, propose, and implement works – more importantly, makes a difference. If it doesn’t do the latter, it’s a pretty hard sell to any researcher, let alone our profession overall, that my being on the team is worthwhile.

In the great discussion that is the discussion of eScience, i.e. the discussion of libraries and librarians and our role in working with data, we continually stake claim to the fact that information management, organization, and retrieval are our areas of expertise. Implied within this is the idea that since our profession (1) developed complex cataloging systems and has maintained them for lo these many years, and (2) that we oversaw the transition from physical card catalogs to OPACs (online public access catalogs), then we (3) know all about how to make different sources of information and/or data inter-operable. We know how to describe information in such a way to allow easy access, easy retrieval, easy sharing. This is our expertise. In fact, this expectation of expertise is stated quite clearly in Aim 1 of the approved proposal for my position:

Leverage the skills of an embedded informationist to allow the research team to more effectively and efficiently communicate about the data derived from multiple sources.

By applying indexing and metadata expertise, the informationist will develop and implement tools that allow the producers of project data analyses (data analyst and statistician) to understand exactly what the consumers of the analyses (PIs, project director, operation managers) are asking for when they request analyses and to create and format analyses that effectively respond to the requests.

I guess at this point it is only appropriate for me to make a confession: I have never created a metadata schema in my life (though I do think I could right a song about it, considering how those words go together so well; metadatA, schemA). I’ve never created a controlled vocabulary. I have indexed things. I have abstracted things. I’ve created tools to improve the organization and sharing of information. But to claim that I have metadata expertise is a bit of a stretch. I have a thorough understanding of some related areas, but I am far from an expert when it comes to creating and/or managing metadata.

So, did we pull the wool over the researchers’ eyes when we signed off on this aim for the grant? Did we claim something that we thought they wanted to hear to convince them of my place on the team? No, I don’t think so. I think that it’s more appropriate to say that we – as a profession and in this particular incident – co-opted a trendy term, “metadata”, (it sounds so techy-important, after all) and inserted it into our own professional vocabulary to give us a toe-hold into an area where we eventually want to be. Librarians doing literature searching, teaching information literacy, and/or providing citation management are not new services. We’ve been doing these all along, outside of the venue of any research team. We have to bring something new into the team, a skill(s) that demonstrates our presence on the team, as an active and engaged member, is significant and important and vital. This will insure our place there in the future. So we pick a word that no one is really all that clear about and say we’re experts with it. The fact that no one is really all that clear about it in the first place allows us to do this.

The truth I’m seeing though, is that I don’t really need to know metadata, per se, to create the outputs (a data dictionary and data request form) that are required of me in Aim 1. So why am I reading books – even more, spending my own money on books – about metadata? Why do I care? In the introduction to his book, Metadata for Information Management and Retrieval, David Haynes states:

This book is aimed at two principal audiences: the information professionals who want to develop their knowledge and skills in order to manage metadata effectively, and managers who are faced with strategic decisions about adoption of IT applications that use metadata.

The intention of this book is to help specialists and professionals who manage information resources to become easily conversant with this important and rapidly developing area … including … library and information professionals who want to educate themselves about a core area of skills as part of their continuing professional development.

The bigger truth for me is that understanding metadata, really knowing how to develop and apply it, will ultimately allow me to address Aim 2 of the proposal, “Assist investigators in identifying and reporting information technology issues that have arisen in the implementation of the study that may be of use to others.”

The research project I’m working on involved the creation and implementation of a tracking system for collecting a great deal of data that is essential to determining the outcomes of the study. This process took place long before I became a part of the team, but what I’ve learned from questions and observation is that this part of the project took much more time, energy and effort than anyone originally anticipated. Conversations between the research team and the IT people building the system didn’t always go well, not because people didn’t get along or didn’t want to work together, but because they spoke different languages.

ENTER THE INFORMATIONIST! If I can become “easily conversant” in this area, if I can take on the role of interpreter between these two groups, then I will have a truly valuable and unique place on the team. So it behooves me to read and learn and absorb and practice – to become proficient in creating and managing metadata (and other aspects of information systems), because this is the area with the “vacant” sign hanging over it. Further, others on the researcher team are not looking for new roles. Neither are people in IT. Librarians are the ones seeking to redefine themselves. We are the profession looking for new ways to do (sometimes) old and (sometimes) new things. We are the profession not doing things we once did, thus we are the profession with the opportunity to explore some new and different things. The others in this mix are not in the same place we are. In other words, they don’t have this great opportunity that we have right now.

However, there is a real need for our profession to step up and do this now. There is a good reason to say that we are experts in metadata, even if we aren’t, and it goes back to something I typed earlier, “The fact that no one is really all that clear about it in the first place allows us to do this.” No one yet knows who or what an informationist really is. No one is all that sure what a data specialist or a data librarian does. As we’re not sure what the role is, we’re not sure the qualifications we’re looking for when we’re seeking to fill such a position. This became really clear to me earlier in the week when I saw a couple of advertisements for job openings in this area. See for yourself. Do a quick search of job descriptions and job postings for this field. You’ll quickly find that there exists no one (or two or three or six) name for the job. There is no one entity where these job openings arise (some come from libraries, some from research centers, some from the private sector). And most notably to me, there is no one set of qualifications – not even one degree – that is required to fill the positions. Postings require everything from a BS to a PhD.

It is this last part that really got me to thinking about – made me really aware of – how wide-open this entire field is.  A recent posting for a Data Management Specialist by Johns Hopkins University states that the qualified candidate will have a Masters of Science in Engineering or Library Science. It wasn’t the first time that I’ve seen this particular coupling, but for some reason this time it struck me and I thought… My brother has a graduate degree in engineering. I have one in library science. What in the world did we ever learn in our schooling that’s similar?! What skills do we mutually possess?

Answer: Zippo! Though to be fair, my brother’s degree is in civil engineering, not computer science, the type of engineering degree I presume JHU means.

But this thought led me to spend a bit of time looking at the requirements of these degree programs. I chose a school that offers both degrees – my own alma mater, Syracuse University. SU is a national leader among information schools and they’ve also recently initiated a certificate of advanced studies program in data science, likely the closest we come in librarianship to computer science. I determined, in my non-scientific way, that it was a suitable choice.

In a nutshell, an MS LIS from Syracuse University requires completion of the following core classes:

Introductory Core

  • Intro to the Library & Information Profession
  • Information & Information Environments

Information Resources Core

  • Reference and Information Literacy Services
  • Library Planning, Marketing, and Assessment
  • Information Resources: Organization and Access

Management and Policy Core

  • Management Principles for Info Professionals
  • Survey of Telecommunications & Info Policy

In addition to this, students can choose from a variety of electives, focusing their work in the areas of Information Services and Resources, Information Organization, Retrieval, and Access, or Information Systems Design and Management.

An MS in Engineering, Computer Science from SU requires these course as an introductory core:

  • Structured Programming and Formal Methods
  • Computer Architecture
  • Principles of Operating Systems
  • Design and Analysis of Algorithms

After this, students complete coursework in abstract mathematics, computer organization and programming systems, data structures, programming languages, and software specification, design, and implementation.

In my humble opinion, these two programs are apples and oranges, and the candidates coming out of them are apples and … humus. Or perhaps brothers and sisters.

HOWEVER, please don’t read this as me bemoaning our degree or saying we are much less prepared to work in a computer-heavy, technology-driven world than our engineering counterparts. That’s not what I see when I see a university like Johns Hopkins post a job opening that will accept applications from candidates with such disparate educational backgrounds. To the contrary, I see it is a sign that when it comes to this area of data management and data services that even a university like Johns Hopkins, a world-renowned research institution, doesn’t know what or who the heck it’s looking for to fill the role.

And so I’ll exclaim again, ENTER THE INFORMATIONIST! It’s “make it up as you go along” mode; “learn as you go” mode; it is, to borrow again from Johns Hopkins, “entrepreneurial library programs” mode.

My first supervisor in this profession, the now-retired Jim Comes, was often heard saying, “These are not challenges, these are opportunities.” I find myself hearing Jim’s words in my head a lot lately, a reminder that the challenge of facing a task that I don’t know how to do is actually an opportunity for me to learn something new. And so I’m going to read two books on metadata – in between reading about happiness, because I’m still stuck on that topic, too. 🙂

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The Pursuit of Happiness

14 Nov

I am in the midst of reading a book by this guy:

Shawn Achor, Good Think, Inc.

I’m reading his book, The Happiness Advantage, because I was so intrigued by his TED Talk (above) when I watched it over the weekend, that I almost immediately used one of my credits at Audible.com to purchase it. So yes, okay, this means that I’m not really reading the book, I’m listening to it. However, I was so taken by listening to it, that I’m picking up a copy of it today from my local bookstore. I need to take notes. I need to write in the margins. I need margins.

I’ve read a good bit about positive psychology over the years. I’ve read the works of Martin Seligman and Carol Dweck and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, among others. I’ve also read Norman Vincent Peale, though admittedly, he’s in a different camp altogether. Sort of. The power of our minds is fascinating to me. I’m always asking or wondering why some people succeed at things while others fail, why some people see possibilities where others see roadblocks, why do some see the glass half full, the sky as the limit, and life as a journey, never a destination? Are we simply born with certain propensities towards certain mindsets, or is it possible to learn how to see the world in a way that helps us focus on the possibilities, the journeys, or the sky?

We had a terrific meeting of informationists here last week. All eight NIH-funded projects were represented. Each person had the chance to share about her (yes, all women) project. It was fascinating to hear everyone talk about the research teams of which they’re a part. It was fascinating not only because of the science, but because the many different things we see that people are doing in this role. We spent Thursday morning, as a group, discussing our projects and tasks, seeking to identify those common to all of us; trying to determine the list of services that might emerge from the informationist role so that a library with such a staff member could say, “We can do this… this… this… ” when speaking to researchers.

So, you may be wondering, what are these things (and what in the world do they have to do with happiness). While there is certainly a lot of variety, it does seem like everyone is providing some of the same things to their research teams:

  • Literature searching and creating tools to aid in searching
  • Bibliographic management
  • Knowledge management
  • Training in information literacy, including improving searching skills

Looks like a pretty standard list of library services, doesn’t it? I wonder if this is because for most researchers approached by a library with the request to embed an informationist into their research team, their initial thought was/is, “library – librarian – librarian skills”. And that’s okay with me. These ARE areas of expertise for me and for others in my profession. It’s what we know.

The NIH-funded supplements are different, however, in that they also required recipients to provide some service, skill and/or expertise in the area of data and here, we seemed to diverge. While they all fall under a big umbrella of “data management,” what this means is… well, you decide:

  • Creating or documenting workflow to organize and manage research data
  • Constructing and/or providing metadata
  • Creating a controlled vocabulary
  • Creating a data dictionary
  • Addressing data privacy and security issues
  • Advising on repositories and other data storage/archiving tools
  • Recommending data preservation and sharing strategies
  • Abstracting data from the literature
  • Recommending strategies for capturing, storing and accessing  data
  • Evaluating, refining and recommending data entry and querying tools

While these tasks involve, for most everyone, some learning curve, the fact that they also differ so greatly struck me as a pretty clear sign that we are making our way into pretty new territory. When librarians go to researchers and say that we can help them with their data, the discussions that evolve around what that help looks like seem to be across the board. What this means for the future, i.e. for our ability to definitively say that an informationist does “X, Y, and Z,” remains to be seen. The services may well be individualized – unique to the library and/or librarian filling the role. They may well be dependent upon what needs the researchers have and whether or not those needs fit with the skills of the library staff at the time.

I imagine that there was a time, once upon a time, when librarians first learned how to do reference. There was a time when library school curricula had to be developed to teach librarians the art of the reference interview, the nuances and peculiarities of all of the reference sources available, how to deliver answers in a concise manner, how to teach patrons to search for themselves. The skills that librarians needed had to be identified and then taught to a workforce. I imagine that this is where we are now, in the world of “informationisting”. We’re not really clear, yet, just what this role entails, at least not entirely. We’re not yet sure how it will fit within the traditional structure of the library. The jury has really just left the courtroom and I’m thinking that the deliberations might take awhile.

And so now you REALLY might be wondering what the heck any of this has to do with happiness. Well, if you haven’t yet watched Achor’s talk, do so now. But if you just can’t be troubled at the moment, let me try to summarize…

People spend an awful lot of time pursuing success, believing that when they achieve success, they will find happiness. Achor’s “happiness advantage” states that this idea, however, is backwards. He posits that we find success easier, faster, and better when we start out happy. Being happy, he claims (and cites a great deal of research to support his theory), makes people think clearer, be more creative, be better at problem solving, and a whole host of other attributes that lead us to success. Negativity, neutrality and fixed thinking (see Carol Dweck’s work) lead people to … well, to the same old place they’ve always been. Maybe that’s okay in a whole lot of situations, but for a profession seeking to deal with the constant barrage of change, it’s not going to prove very useful. Indeed, it may well prove to be librarianship’s biggest downfall.

Someone made a comment after last Thursday’s follow-up meeting that the room was filled with very confident people. Studies in entrepreneurship show that confidence, more than any other attribute, is the best determinant of success for people seeking to start their own businesses or ventures. In many ways, that’s exactly what this adventure in embedded librarianship is seeking to do, i.e. to create new businesses, new models of service, new ventures for librarians. We need confident people in these roles. Not delusional people, mind you, but confident ones. Confident, positive and yes, happy, people.

Gotta go pick up my copy now!

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