Purpose
A major development in academic libraries in the last decade has been recognition of the need to support research data management. The aim of this paper is to capture how library research data services have developed and to assess the impact of this on the nature of academic libraries.

Design/methodology/approach
Questionnaire responses from libraries in Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the UK and USA from 2018 are compared to a previous dataset from 2014.

Findings
The evidence supports a picture of the spread of research data services, especially advisory ones. However, future ambitions do not seem to have seen much evolution. There is limited evidence of organisational change and skills shortages remain. Most service development can be explained as the extension of traditional library services to research data. Yet there remains the potential for transformational impacts, when combined with the demands implied by other new services such as around text and data mining, bibliometrics and artificial intelligence. A revised maturity model is presented that summarises typical stages of development of services, structures and skills.

Research limitations/implications
The research models how research data services are developing. It also reflects on the extent to which RDM represents a transformation of the role of academic libraries.

Practical implications
Practitioners working in the research data management arena can benchmark their current practices and future plans against wider patterns.

Originality/value
The study offers a clear picture of the evolution of Research Data Services internationally and proposes a maturity model to capture typical stages of development. It contributes to the wider discussion of how the nature of academic libraries are changing.

/pdf/maturing-research-data-services-and-the-transformation-of-2o3bawkljl.pdf

Maturing research data services and the transformation of academic libraries

“Planning the Data Curation Network” funded 2016-2017 by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant G-2016-7044

/pdf/data-curation-network-a-cross-institutional-staffing-model-n46h3hrzp3.pdf

Data Curation Network: A Cross-Institutional Staffing Model for Curating Research Data

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL)/Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) Joint Task Force on Research Data Services formed in 2020 with a two-fold purpose: (1) to demonstrate and commit to the roles research libraries have in stewarding research data and as part of institution-wide research support services and (2) to guide the development of resources for the ARL and CARL memberships in advancing their organizations as collaborative partners with respect to research data services in the context of FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) data principles and the US National Academies’ Open Science by Design framework. Research libraries will be successful in meeting these objectives if they act collectively and are deeply engaged with disciplinary communities. The task force formed three working groups of data practitioners, representing a wealth of expertise, to research the institutional landscape and policy environment in both the US and Canada. This report presents the task force’s recommendations for the roles of research libraries with regard to research data principles, policies, and approaches to managing research data. The report also offers strategies for discipline-specific research data approaches, priorities for automation of processes, economic models to scale and sustain shared resources, prioritization of research data to steward, and decision-making rubrics.

ARL/CARL Joint Task Force on Research Data Services: Final Report

The rise of data-driven research and discovery may be one of the greatest strategic opportunities to confront academic libraries in a generation. The argument advanced in this article is that the d...

The Data Science Opportunity: Crafting a Holistic Strategy

"Introduction to Data Curation" from Curating Research Data Volume One: Practical Strategies for Your Digital Repository

This book chapter was first published in: "Curating Research Data" published by the American Library Association, Association of College and Research Libraries.

Mayu Ishida

Papers

Research Data Services Maturity in Academic Libraries

Research Data Services Vision(s): an Analysis of North American Research Libraries.