Managing Research Data

Citation

Lund, P. (2013), "Managing Research Data", The Electronic Library, Vol. 31 No. 1, pp. 132-133. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640471311299191

The digital age has brought significant change to the way research is undertaken. E‐Research, typified by collaboration, the use of grid computing and being data intensive; may have started in science with large data sets being collected from CERN (the Large Hadron Collider) but it is increasingly common in many disciplines, e.g. the digital humanities and the Canterbury earthquakes. As the editor indicates in the preface, information technology has made the academic research community increasingly self sufficient. The role of the information professional in supporting researchers in this environment can be fuzzy. The University Library has responded with initiatives like the institutional repository, providing a wealth of scholarly outputs on open access, but can more be done in terms of data management?

Turn to this book for the answer. It has a well chosen list of contributors and is consistently well written. As such it is strongly recommended reading for anyone interested in research data management, be they library professionals, policy makers or academic researchers confronted by stringent funders' demands. Pryor's introductory chapter “Why manage data?” sets the scene, explaining the data deluge and the data curation life cycle. It presents a compelling case for the management of data – very useful for those of us starting to get to grips with the idea of managing data.

The book is well edited and may be divided into three parts. The first part covers the lifecycle of data management, research data policies, sustainable data and management plans, all of which will appeal to those who need to understand data management, or as Pryor has it “do data”. In a middle section, readers will find the chapter by Corrall on the “Roles and responsibilities: libraries, librarians and data” to be thoroughly researched and referenced so forming a vital guide to possibilities for librarians keen to grapple with data management. In the following chapter “Research data management: opportunities and challenges for HEIs”, Proctor et al. highlight the need for, amongst other things, academic rewards and recognition for publishing data.

The final third of the book considers data management centres in the UK and includes a welcome look at the contrasting research data management strategies in USA and Australia. The final chapter describes emerging infrastructure and services for research data management and curation in the UK and Europe, and in attempting to predict the evolution of research data acts as a conclusion to the book.

Overall this text offers a wide ranging view of research data management and deserves to be equally widely read. Perhaps more could be said about the role of ontologies and metadata creation – the index has no entry for Dublin Core, for instance and indeed the index is a little idiosyncratic: Cambridge University Library is included but MIT, also referred to the text, is not. The book does not appear to be available as an e‐book. However this would be nitpicking, for whilst this book may not answer all your questions in the evolving sphere of research data management, it will certainly ensure you will know which ones to ask.