Life Rafts in a Sea of Data: The Role of Librarians in Supporting Data Sharing

Abstract

The NIH has updated its policies on managing and sharing research data and will require a Data Management and Sharing Plan for all NIH-funded projects beginning in January 2023. This impending change may seem overwhelming, particularly for researchers who have not had to consider how to make their data findable, accessible, interoperable, or reusable by others outside of the project team before. Librarians have prepared for the data sharing requirements made by funding agencies and publishers, and many academic libraries now offer data services to help researchers navigate through the process. Librarians offer services and support to help craft actionable data sharing plans, to assist researchers in considering how to document and organize their data, and to prepare data for deposit into a repository. Our presentation will introduce you to how librarians approach data services and how to connect with the services they provide.