2025 Symposium Schedule

All times are in US Eastern Daylight Time (EDT; UTC-04:00)

Location

All conference sessions will be held at the Michigan State University Main Library, 366 W. Circle Drive, East Lansing, MI.

Monday, October 20

Breakfast & Registration

8:00 - 9:00

Welcome, Housekeeping, & Icebreaker

9:00 - 10:15

Icebreaker Facilitator: Daria Orlowska, Western Michigan University

Break

10:15 - 10:30

1.0 Presentations

10:30 - 11:45

Facilitator: Summer Mengarelli, University of Notre Dame

1.1 Making Data Count: A Practical Framework for Engaging Researchers in Open Science
10:30 - 10:45

Alaina Pearce
Assistant Research Data Management Librarian
The Pennsylvania State University

While sharing research data openly benefits the broader scientific community, it requires significant time and effort and is often perceived to have little benefit to the individual researcher. Contributing to this perception is the fact that data sharing is not formally recognized in tenure or career advancement decisions at most academic institutions. To make open science more appealing and sustainable, it is important to address both the perceived benefit of and effort required for data sharing. Therefore, this framework incorporates data sharing outputs like publications and citations, which ‘count’ in academic structures, in addition to focusing on practical research data management (RDM) skills.

This session presents a framework for engaging researchers in open science and data sharing by showing them how to get credit for sharing their data. Central to this approach is the focus on practical research outputs that help to build a researcher’s CV or citation count. One example of this is data papers, which are peer-review publications that accompany open data. Data papers provide an additional peer-reviewed publication and a direct way to cite the use of shared data in the future. To prepare data for publication, researchers also need training in practical, ‘good enough’ RDM practices. These ‘good enough’ practices are relatively low effort, have a shallow learning curve, and increase data reusability. This framework will help librarians develop programing that improves RDM, encourages data sharing, and helps research see strategic benefits of data sharing.

Learning Objectives:

  • Identify ‘good enough’ data practices that can support data sharing
  • Understand how data papers can incentivize researchers to engage in RDM training and data sharing

1.2 Research Data Services and R2: Challenges and Opportunities
10:45 - 11:00

Rui Wang
Professor, Social Science/Government Information Librarian/ICPSR OR
Central Michigan University

Research data services have been developed more sophisticatedly as data-driven research activities have been increased with funding agencies and publishers’ data policies and mandates. Ithaka S+R has tracked the trends of research data services across institutions of Carnegie Classifications since 2020. Ithaka S+R 2024 report reveals that libraries remain the largest provider of research data services in the U.S., but the gap between R1s and R2s shows wider. In 2020, R1 institutions exceed R2s by more than double the number of research data services offered. In 2024. R1 institutions offer approximately three times the number of services offered by R2s. Apparently, R2s are facing more challenges in terms of institutional investment, insufficient staffing, lack of technical expertise and the support of High Performance Computing (HPC), and more. How do R2s tackle these challenges? What is a unique role that R2s can play? This presentation will share the recent experiences in developing data services at a R2 university to shine a light on building data services for R2 institutions.

1.3 S’more Than Just Collaboration: A Creative Space for Connection and Innovation
11:00 - 11:15

Kelly Burns
Research Data Management Specialist
Purdue University

Devoting time to communication and collaboration with campus stakeholders and partners is a key part of data services at a large R1 university. As the need for data services increases, so do stakeholders. Fostering relationships and keeping up with this network can be complex. A year after releasing our institutional data repository, our team decided to plan an annual “summer camp” style event to promote our services, share our impact, and to ensure communication and collaboration remained key to our success on campus. This year, our institutional data repository reaches its 14th year and pulled off our 11th summer camp collaboration.

The proposed talk presents the history and valuable outcomes of the annual event and how it helps the repository remain in a relevant and integral position within the network of essential campus research and data services. The presentation will touch on event planning, including logistics, guests, the agenda, the history and the experience of the event. It will feature resulting outcomes such as initiatives and projects from recent gatherings. The goal is to share a fun and consistent way to engage with the network of collaborators and find unique activities to foster and expand relationships with a campus support community to prioritize and grow future services and solutions together.

Learning objectives:

  • A half-day, team-led event offers data librarians a valuable platform to showcase their successes and demonstrate their capabilities to current and prospective stakeholders who may not fully understand the scope of their work.
  • A regularly held, collaboration-centered event enables data librarians to share ongoing projects and innovative ideas with campus partners, fostering new connections and strengthening existing networks.
  • An informal gathering can facilitate the data librarian’s awareness and understanding of the work and perspectives of diverse partners, collaborators and stakeholders across the institution.

1.4 DIY Data Repository: Repurposing the IR and Developing Policy for Data Deposit
11:15 - 11:30

Joshua Neds-Fox
Coordinator for Digital Publishing
Wayne State University Libraries

The problem: faculty need a permanent, citeable location for data to accompany pending publications, and the expertise of a librarian to develop appropriate metadata, but lack funding for a curated data repository. The solution: an open data series in the institutional repository. This session will detail the case that initiated development of an open data series at the speaker’s institution, the specifics of implementation including the development of a data deposit policy, and a discussion of the implications and limitations of this DIY approach to data deposit and curation. Attendees will gain a better understanding of the range of factors and considerations involved in repurposing the IR to house data.

1.5 Questions for Presenters

11:30 - 11:45

Break

11:45 - 12:00

Lunch & Birds of a Feather

12:00 - 1:00

2.0 Lightning Talks

1:00 - 2:10

Facilitator: Nicole Scholtz, University of Michigan

2.1 Maintaining a Deleted Data LibGuide Box: A Lightweight Contribution to the Data Deletion Fight
1:05 - 1:12

Tina Griffin
Associate Professor
University of Illinois Chicago

Due to the deletion of data and information pages by the current US government administration regarding health and science topics, health science liaisons recognize that connecting people to alternate sources information is critical for both advancing scientific discovery and delivering evidence-based care to the most vulnerable of those in our care.

However, missing or deleted data is one of many threats facing higher education, and more specifically libraries. As much as we may want to participate in data rescue, create workshops and design full LibGuides on the data crisis, it may be impractical. This lightning talk will showcase how a small box on government data deletion and alternate sources may be easier to manage and update, can contribute to internal dialogue on the data issues, and is an easy tool to share that helps colleagues have their own conversations.

2.2 Going Beyond Creative Commons: Approaches to Licensing Works with Both Data and Code
1:15 - 1:22

Jake Gibson
Data Intern
University of Michigan Libraries

In order to make research open, accessible, and reusable to diverse research communities, data repositories must consider a variety of approaches to licensing works. The situation can become particularly complex when individual works contain both data and code, as these two components may require separate licenses. Standard data licenses including Creative Commons and Open Data Commons, do not have terms regarding the distribution of source code, an essential characteristic of open access software. As a result, data curators and repositories must thoughtfully guide researchers through the process of assessing the relevance of multiple open licenses to their work.

This lightning talk will present recommendations made for an R1 institutional data repository on refining the deposit and curation process for works containing both data and code. These recommendations build on those made in the Data Curation Network’s Primer for Applying and Interpreting Licenses for Research Data and Code (Chinn et al., 2024), providing guidance on implementing best practices in a Samvera repository. Recommendations will also briefly highlight compatible data and code licenses and strategies for educating researchers on selecting appropriate open licenses.

These recommendations were developed as a part of a 10-week internship preparing current students and recent MLIS graduates for careers in Data Librarianship.

Citations: Chinn, L., Murray 🦇, M., & Wink, I. (2024). A Primer for Applying and Interpreting Licenses for Research Data and Code. Data Curation Network GitHub Repository.

2.3 Surfeit of Sources: Appraising Data Management Books for Librarians
1:25 - 1:32

Abigail Goben
Professor and Data Management Librarian
University of Illinois Chicago

As data librarianship has grown in the past 15 years, many authors and publishers have sought to provide introductory texts for librarians who are newly entering the field or who are reskilling. This has resulted in an average of 2 new books per year spread across a variety of academic, commercial, and library-focused publishers.

The majority of these books are focused entirely on background knowledge and the initial creation of data management services, with a particular emphasis on meeting requirements for the US federal agency data management policies as well as the similar requirements and policies that have emerged in Canada and in countries across Europe. The books also often provide basic suggestions for teaching foundational data management skills to researchers and graduate students.

In this presentation, we will share a comprehensive overview of the books that have been published, identifying the broad topics addressed in each and the limitations of the corpus as a whole. We will also discuss what formats are available and the barriers that cost may play for librarians in accessing these books. Our hope is to provide the community an understanding of how overwhelmingly introductory topics have been covered and identify ideas for more advanced or niche materials that would support the data community as it continues to evolve and mature.

2.4 Collection Data as Research Data
1:35 - 1:42

Emily Cukier
Science Librarian
Washington State University

Interested in building data skills, but don’t feel like an “expert” in any data related field? Try looking in your own back yard.

This talk will introduce OCLC WorldShare Collection manager as a source of bibliographic data for research projects. Your library probably subscribes to it to manage your collection, and you may remember its data types from library school. You can query WorldShare Collection Manager to compile records based on common item information like author, subject keyword, language, or publication year. From there you can analyze and filter on any MARC fields you like – or combine with holdings and location data from OCLC’s APIs to map out which libraries have items in your data set.

While we won’t get into the nitty-gritty of how, this presentation hopes to inspire you to think about using familiar data at hand to develop data skills. These data are accessible to a broad swath of librarians – at no additional cost beyond what their institution already pays – but tough for others to get, enabling a diverse set of novel projects.

Learning objectives include:

  • Learn how to access OCLC WorldShare Collection manager
  • Learn what types of data and search indexes are available through OCLC WorldShare Collection Manager
  • Name some research use-cases for OCLC bibliographic data

2.5 Introduction to the BTAA GIN (Big Ten Academic Alliance Geospatial Information Network) Geoportal Project
1:45 - 1:52

Amanda Tickner
GIS Librarian
Michigan State University

This lightning talk will briefly introduce the BTAA GIN Geoportal Project and show some features of our geoportal, a geospatial data discovery website.

2.6 Lightning Talk Q&A
1:55 - 2:10

Break

2:10 - 2:30

3.0 Workshop

2:30 - 4:00

Dataset Bingo! Teaching Data Management Best Practices Through Exploration of Shared Datasets

Megan O’Donnell
Research Data Services Lead
Iowa State University

Jen Ferguson
Head, Research Data Services
Northeastern University

Isaac Wink
Research Data Librarian
University of Kentucky

Making data management lessons stick for learners can be a challenge. We have developed a dataset bingo game that provides an unorthodox opportunity for learners to take note of data management practices that can be applied to datasets in any field, thus making it a flexible learning activity across disciplines. By having learners investigate shared datasets in their field, they not only gain exposure to scholarly communications practices around data sharing, but also experience the real-world impact of good or bad data management practices.

MDLS participants will have the opportunity to try an in-development version of this activity and provide feedback. This iteration of the game will be physical, but we intend to also make a version that can be played virtually. Over the course of the workshop, we will cover the context for the activity, play the game with participants, facilitate a discussion about how participants may apply it at their own institutions, and provide files for running and adapting the activity.

Learning Objectives:

  • Evaluate datasets for ease of understanding and reuse through an interactive game,
  • Match data management best practices to published datasets,
  • Adapt the game for deployment at your institution

Break

4:00 - 4:15

4.0 Lessons Learned / Failure Lightning Talks

4:15 - 5:00

Facilitators: Dani Kirsch, Oklahoma State University, Kate Saylor, University of Michigan

Announcements

5:00 - 5:10

Dine-Arounds

Tentatively 6:00 - 8:00

Tuesday, October 21

Breakfast

8:00 - 9:00

5.0 Keynote

9:00 - 10:00

In Celebration of Anchors: The Data Rescue Project’s Fast + Slow Development

Mikala Narlock
Director of Research Data Services
Indiana University Libraries

Starting in January 2025, the US data landscape underwent dramatic changes. Threats to federal funding—and by extension, federal datasets—prompted urgent preservation efforts. What began as hurried Slack conversations, a rapidly expanding Google Doc, and last-minute meetings, quickly evolved into the Data Rescue Project. As an independent coalition of data librarians, scientists, journalists, and anyone passionate about data preservation, our group has flourished over time, bringing with that growth a distinctive set of challenges. We are navigating the tension between urgency and expansion versus deliberate and sustainable approaches. We have sought to balance the project’s potential with our capacity, learning when to decline requests, direct inquiries to other resources, or dive in wholeheartedly. In this presentation, attendees will discover not only the work of the Data Rescue Project, but also how we have integrated intentional, sustainable methodology into our efforts—including our successes and areas for continued improvement.

Speaker Bio: Mikala Narlock serves as Director of Research Data Services at Indiana University Libraries, where she develops and implements research data programming, resources, and services for students and researchers in alignment with broader initiatives across the Libraries and IU’s research campuses. Her experience in academic libraries has focused on data curation, collection building and repository management, and digital preservation. She is a co-founder and steering committee member of the Data Rescue Project.

Break

10:00 - 10:15

6.0 Facilitated Discussion

10:15 - 11:15

Share and Compare: Position Titles and Descriptions

E.M. Durham
Research Data Librarian
University of Kansas

Corey Barber
Data Services Librarian
Indiana University Indianapolis

How are position titles and descriptions working for, or against, us? How do our responsibilities differ from paper to practice? How do we anticipate them changing in the next five years? This session will begin with a brief presentation to frame the conversation, transitioning into a facilitated discussion where participants can compare and reflect on position titles and job descriptions across the field. The presenting facilitator will share their recent experience navigating the job market, interviewing, and securing their first librarian role as they enter a newly created position and are actively co-defining their role. The structure of the conversation will allow participants to exchange experiences and perspectives with peer practitioners, in small groups of varied experience, and as a whole. While example descriptions will be provided to begin discussion, sharing individual position descriptions and responsibilities with one another will be encouraged.

Objectives and hopeful outcomes:

  1. Provide an opportunity for transparent conversation about roles and responsibilities across data librarianship.
  2. Identify common experiences and perspectives on the challenges and opportunities titles and descriptions pose for practitioners.
  3. Consider how position descriptions are evolving and how they could be evolved to better grow a diverse and inclusive data community.

Break

11:15 - 11:30

7.0 Interactive Presentation

11:30 - 12:00

Data Data: An Institutional Data Repository Analysis

Michelle Zhai
Research Data Librarian
Iowa State University

Our institutional data repository hosts over 600 datasets, published throughout a little over eight years, which allows us to ask a lot of questions. Who are we serving through the repository? What are some of our impacts? Can we draw conclusions to guide future actions? What else can we learn from these datasets? A presentation will briefly cover the workflow and some of the insights from the analysis.

An interactive session will follow the presentation. The focus is on institutional data repository statistics. Participants can share their observations on the presentation and their own experiences. We will also have a chance to brainstorm ideas or establish collaboration with peers.

Learning objectives: During the session, the participants will

  • Interpret usage statistics presented in the presentation
  • Identify tools or platforms to study data repository stats at their institutions
  • Construct ideas of future collaborations or projects

Welcoming Remarks

12:00 - 12: 05
Neil Romanosky, Dean, MSU Libraries

Lunch

12:05 - 12:30

Tours / Extended Lunch

12:30 - 1:45

We will be offering the following tours of MSU Library Spaces. Attendance is limited for each space, so you will have to select the tour you would like to participate in when you sign in for the symposium.

Digital Scholarship Lab / Hollander Makerspace

The Digital Scholarship Lab offers a range of services a programs using digital tools and platforms, including:

  • a 360-degree immersive visualization room
  • a Virtual Reality Room for experimentation with VR headsets
  • a digitization room
  • a high-powered computer lab, flex space, projects rooms, and faculty incubator space

Hollander Makerspace is an active learning environment and gathering space that encourages cross-discipline collaboration, experimentation and learning. Technologies include:

  • 3-D printing
  • CNC routing
  • laser cutting
  • soldering station
  • vaccum former
  • Cricut maker
  • zine station

Murray & Hong Special Collections

The Murray & Hong Special Collections contains more than 500,000 printed works as well as ephemera, archival material, and manuscripts, including:

  • a comic art collection containing more than 300,000 items
  • a major collection of cookbooks and cooking ephemera
  • a collection of graphic novels
  • a major collection of radical literature
  • a collection of Michigan rock ‘n’ roll history
  • early examples of printing, dating to medieval times

Media Preservation Lab

The Media Preservation Lab at MSU Libraries focuses on preserving and making available video, and moving image film media commonly found among library and archival collections.

  • Media Preservation prioritizes treatment of these items and develops long-term strategies for their care
  • Media Preservation provides consultation and, where appropriate, conservation treatment and reformatting/digitization services to the Libraries’ collecting units
  • Recently awarded a sizable grant to support the purchasing of media digitization equipment and the creation of a digital media preservation lab to digitally preserve the historical media collections, including the archive of the early public television at MSU

8.0 Workshop

1:45 - 3:15

Scoping When the World’s on Fire: Mapping, Modeling, and Diagramming to Establish Sustainable Data Services

Isaac Wink
Research Data Librarian
University of Kentucky

Mikala Narlock
Director of Research Data Services
Indiana University Bloomington

Scoping data services is hard! Even during “normal” times, it can be incredibly difficult to set expectations for data services at an academic institution: there is always more that could be done, always a researcher with a new need. In our effort to refuse narratives of “doing more with less,” we have been actively working at our respective institutions to (re)define what data services can do. In this workshop, we will walk attendees through a scoping process to encourage reflection at their home institutions.

Whether participants come from established and well-resourced data services teams or are sole service providers balancing data services against other responsibilities, this workshop will provide a space for them to map out and articulate the data services they can (and can’t!) offer. By mapping, diagramming, modeling, or otherwise visually representing their services and capacity, participants will have the opportunity to experiment with new formats for articulating their work. Our framework for this workshop will be Slow Librarianship, which will encourage participants to consider how to do fewer things better rather than more things poorly.

We will balance lecture, independent work, and group discussion to enable participants to leave with a better understanding of the existing data services models in use across institutions. Through peer-to-peer learning activities, attendees will brainstorm scoping of data services and visually map their thoughts using a variety of models we provide or ones they create themselves. Workshop participants will be able to articulate services that are in scope and out of scope for their institution given current capacity, considered through the lens of their current position as a solo data services librarian, team member, or manager. Attendees will be encouraged to consider which services will be delivered in which formats and, importantly, which services may be out of scope for their institution given current staffing and expertise.

Break

3:15 - 3:30

9.0 Unconference Session

3:30 - 5:00

Facilitator: Amanda Tickner, Michigan State University

Announcements

5:00 - 5:10

Dine-Arounds

Tentatively 6:00 - 8:00

Wednesday, October 22

Breakfast

8:00 - 9:00

10.0 Workshop

9:00 - 10:30

Tracing Our Data Lineage

E.M. Durham
Research Data Librarian
University of Kansas

Who are the beings, places, and entities that brought us to this field, practice, and our scholarship? How did this unique makeup of individuals make it into this room together at this moment? “Tracing Our Data Lineage” will create space for us to expand the citation apparatus and name the sources of our influence and support beyond those in the literature. Grounding the workshop, the facilitating presenter will first give a lightning talk to introduce their framing of data lineage, including examples from their own journey. Next, attendees will be guided through exercises using analog tools such as sticky notes and markers to document lineage points and identify connections, culminating in a collaboratively generated representation of our individual and collective lineages. In closing, we will reflect on the activity in small groups and then share out the insights we uncover.

In the vein of thinkers such as Donna Haraway, this workshop invites us to interrogate the stories we tell about our past, present, and future. By giving recognition to the teachers, mentors, thought collaborators, peers, and co-creators who are less likely to make it into our bibliographies, we can grow our understanding and appreciation of who we are and who we want to be as a field and community.

Objectives and hopeful outcomes:

  1. Reflect on the beings, places, and entities that have shaped our paths to research data and data librarianship.
  2. Collaboratively map and interconnect the diverse lineages of our data community.
  3. Explore how radical expansion of citation practices can better represent the network of our influences and foster a more inclusive data community.

Break

10:30 - 10:45

11.0 Closing Reflection Session

10:45 - 11:30

Jamene Brooks-Kieffer Data Services Librarian University of Kansas

Lunch & Future of MDLS Community Meeting

11:30 - 1:00

Amanda Tickner GIS Librarian Michigan State University

Kelly Burns Research Data Management Specialist Purdue University

Wrap-Up & Goodbye

1:00 - 1:10