Submitted by Jake Carlson, Research Data Services Manager, University of Michigan, jakecar@umich.edu
I recently came across three opinion pieces that got me thinking on the current state of data librarians.
The first one, “Stacking the Deck” by Professor Michael Stephens, was published in the Library Journal. He describes “the full stack employee,” as first articulated by tech writer Chris Messina, and then re-imagines this description into the library workplace. A full stack employee is someone who is always on, deeply invested and goes the extra mile. They continually seek out new ways of producing and innovating through the application of technology and best practices. They are deeply connected to their peers through social media and share what they are doing, not to purposefully make a name for themselves, but to give back and add value to their communities. It’s not that they know everything; it’s that they are driven to discover possibilities and to bring people together.
Sounds like a model employee type that every library would want to hire, right? But what about the librarian him or herself? Are they “full stacked” because they want to be, or because they feel they have to be just to do their job?
Which brings me to the second piece, “Hiring Data Librarians” written by Alexis Johnson and published on Scribd. Alex is a self-described new data librarian and writes on adjusting to the position. Data librarians are often asked to perform a great many tasks and to possess or acquire a great many skills to perform their functions. Alex’s experience was coming in to the position with one set of expectations and then having more and more responsibilities piled on because “you’re a bright young fellow.” These creeping additions that Alex describes led to feelings of inadequacy for never being able to do enough as a data librarian and an anxiety that comes with feeling that you have to devote nights and weekends to learning and skill development. Alex closes the piece describing an actual job ad for a data librarian that includes 5 areas of responsibility, each of which could be considered a full time job in and of itself.
Finally, Rick Anderson writes of a “Quiet culture war in research libraries, and what it means for librarians, researchers and publishers” in UKSG Insights earlier this month. He is not writing on data librarianship directly but instead describes two competing conceptions of the role of the modern research library. On one side there are those who believe that the mission of the research library is to support the needs of its host institution. On the other side are those who would argue that libraries ought to focus on addressing larger issues of scholarly communication irrespective of institution. It is a lengthy piece and I cannot do it justice by trying to summarize it here. What drew my attention were his observations that disagreements in conceptions of the fundamental mission and how these disagreements play out in the operating culture of the library create tensions in the library’s allocation of scarce resources to its programs and projects.
Taken together these pieces present a potential problem for data librarians. I find Professor Stephen’s articulation of a full stack librarian interesting (though I do find the implicit equating of high performance in librarians to tech savviness and youth rather troubling). However, I am concerned that libraries as organizations will come to expect or demand such a complete commitment from hired data librarians without recognizing or providing the level of support needed for him or her to be successful. There are many, many ways that librarians could incorporate working with research data into their positions, but all too often I see job ads like the one described by Alex that over reach and ask for more than one person could possibly accomplish. What this type of job ad implies is that the hiring institution does not know what it wants to do in providing research data support, and in all likelihood will expect the person hired to figure it out for them. In this scenario, the hired librarian may not receive the resources or support needed to be successful. As Dorothea Salo has noted, the practice of hiring smart and talented librarians into ill-defined positions without providing them a solid base of support runs a high risk of burning out and driving away the very people libraries want to attract.
Developing data services is more than just hiring a librarian. It needs to be about the library as an organization making a commitment and investment of time, money and other resources to understand the needs of the communities (within or outside of the institution) and then to respond in ways that add value. This is not to say that libraries must have everything worked out beforehand, rather it is to recognize that getting into data will affect library organization and culture, and that a willingness to consider and openly support change will be needed to succeed. In other words, to support the full stacked librarian, we ought to consider how to build a full stacked library.