July 18, 2025
Heather Charlotte Owen
Data Librarian
University of Rochester Libraries
https://orcid.org/0009-0001-1771-366X
Sarah Siddiqui
Reproducibility Librarian
University of Rochester Libraries
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4443-0550
Matthew Mariner
Data Curator Librarian
University of Rochester Libraries
https://orcid.org/0009-0003-3479-0960
Introduction
At the University of Rochester, a R1 institution located in upstate New York, USA, it became crucial to increase the library’s data services to support researchers as they meet funder requirements, delve into open science, and improve data literacy. Historically, the Library has had a solo Data Librarian position with split liaison assignments. After a vacancy and a hiring freeze during COVID, the position was revamped with a singular focus on research data support. By January 2023, right before the new NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy went live, this new librarian helped create a service for supporting data needs across the University.
Originally staffed by two librarians, a Data Librarian and a Health Sciences Librarian with data responsibilities, Data Services focused on reviewing data management and sharing plans, offering instructional opportunities, and launching and administrating new data tools, such as an electronic laboratory notebook (LabArchives) and an institutional repository (University of Rochester Research Repository).
Although this service was created in response to the NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy, the intention was for it to grow and support all funders and disciplines, and to assist the community in all aspects of the data lifecycle. This includes supporting everything from planning and management, to collection and analysis, and finally to preservation and sharing. The Library endeavored to incorporate all forms of research data support under the Data Services umbrella, increase the services provided, and hire new team members. At present, Data Services comprises the three authors and serves the entire University. The team is a part of the Research Initiatives portfolio, which also includes the STEM Librarians. This newly formed team supports researchers via chat service, one-on-one consultations, private trainings, and public workshops. Through its combined skills the team efficiently covers the full research data lifecycle, with each member specializing in a different section. This editorial introduces each team member, describes their roles and responsibilities, and concludes with a look towards the future of the service.
Data Librarian
As the original member of the team who launched the service back in January 2023, the Data Librarian has witnessed how Data Services has grown and evolved to fully support the research community. Originally responsible for both supporting the entire data lifecycle and launching a variety of new tools, the Data Librarian focused on reviewing data management and sharing plans, giving public webinars on various funders, and supporting the launch of LabArchives and the University’s institutional repository. The Data Librarian’s goal for the service was to help it grow so it could equally support all disciplines and all types of researchers. Launching these services and tools was more than being an admin or being available to answer questions – it involved creating clear documentation, offering public workshops, and being creative with marketing.
As additional colleagues were hired, the Data Librarian became responsible for the “beginning” part of the team’s effective workflow. She continued to review data management and sharing plans, and offer educational opportunities on topics from data management best practices, to meeting funder mandates, documentation, file naming conventions, data cleaning, and data visualization. This work is crucial as it supports researchers applying for government funding. But, more importantly, proper data management practices lead to high quality research that holistically enhances the University of Rochester’s intellectual output and standing.
Beyond the research data lifecycle, however, the team also wanted to support data literacy, which is a key aspect of the Library’s strategic plan. As a former teacher and the original member of the team, the Data Librarian is responsible for leading all data literacy initiatives. This has led to being involved in classroom instruction, private training, and collaborations with groups on campus, along with leading several popular public workshop series. Workshop topics range from data visualization and data management best practices, to bespoke workshops like using data in Special Collections, visualizing data in VR, and combining public data and mapping. Data is a crucial part of daily life, yet many individuals experience misunderstanding and trepidation around data, highlighting the importance of having educational opportunities focused on data in a free, third space such as a library.
One of the most rewarding aspects of this job is the sheer breadth of people the team assists.
As a discipline-agnostic, free service, the team is uniquely positioned to support researchers, students, staff, and members of the Rochester community. The idea that “data is for everyone” is of utmost importance, and the team is beginning to reach more and more members of the community.
Reproducibility Librarian
The words reproducibility and replicability in combination with “crisis” (Cobey et al., 2024) have become fairly well-known in the scholarly world, although their definitions (and implications) can vary across fields. Recognition of this crisis has sparked multidisciplinary conversations and initiatives for better research practices and workflows (Korbmacher, et al., 2023). Broadly, a study is reproducible when it includes essential components such that when repeated, the results obtained are consistent with the original study. These components would ideally be integrated in the “middle part” of the research lifecycle, and would satisfy the increasing publisher and funder requirements when the outputs from scientific studies are shared.
Previously a STEM Librarian at the University of Rochester, the Reproducibility Librarian transitioned to this newly created role in December of 2023. This position was created to manage and support tools and platforms available to researchers at the university that enhance reproducibility, with an emphasis on producing and sharing reproducible code, data, documentation, and metadata. A key element here is understanding the needs and best practices for researchers across disciplines, since reproducibility, like data, is for everyone. As the Library was scaling up data services, responsibility for the university’s instance of LabArchives as well as support and training for its adoption was transitioned to the Reproducibility Librarian. She collaborates with other library departments, such as Scholarly Communications, for promoting related resources such as Open Science Framework (OSF) for Institutions. Other supported platforms include Protocols.io, wherein researchers can collaboratively share protocols and methodologies. As a member of the Libraries Data Services team, the Reproducibility Librarian is also very involved in the data literacy workshops offered throughout the year.
A goal for Data Services is to expand the offerings and outreach in a sustainable way. The team started hiring students to support this growth with the Reproducibility Librarian managing the student employees, fielding relevant input from the entire team. Presently there are three students in the department: two undergraduate students focus on data literacy initiatives, while a graduate student assists with analytical projects aimed at enhancing the quality and visibility of the university’s scholarly output, which is part of the larger research initiatives supported by the team.
Since starting this role, the Reproducibility Librarian has spoken to researchers across the institution about the services to identify emerging needs and share scholarly trends. For instance, there are growing conversations around persistent identifiers (PIDs) at different levels. PIDs for individuals, such as ORCIDs, are essential for author disambiguation, which aids institutional reputation and are increasingly required by funders. PIDs for instruments are growing in a less defined way but also stand to enhance reproducibility. The Reproducibility Librarian is learning more about these and starting outreach in the area. In addition, she is discussing with the Library’s Humanities Librarians what reproducibility means for their departments and how to better support them.
Data Curator Librarian
The Data Curator joined the Data Services team in early 2024, and serves the end point in thedata lifecycle. Alongside the two colleagues discussed above, who represent the initial and middle steps in the process of data management, the person in this role acts as a long-term caretaker charged with ensuring the future usability of the data with which the University is entrusted. When future researchers open a dataset in the University’s care, they ought to be able to understand its contents, decipher its organization, glean its purpose, and access the files within. On a practical level, the Data Curator focuses on normalizing data, which includes:
- Ensuring tabular data complies with all accepted standards and is consistent
- Homogenizing file and folder structures
- Transcoding proprietary or abstruse filetypes to more widely interpretable ones
- Applying metadata
- Improving accessibility of datasets and documentation
Overall, this role requires a breadth of skills and, perhaps most importantly, an appreciation for documented processes and an interest in the peculiarities inherent in dozens of disparate data-producing disciplines. These skills coalesce into this role’s de facto oversight of the institutional repository, University of Rochester Research Repository, which serves as the primary access and preservation platform for all institutional data and research output. While this role is still evolving, it is apparent that its role in research is essential. Like similar positions, a data curator must often design and redesign their role on the fly, pivoting toward the semi-annual needs of grant funded research teams, and the ad hoc needs of researchers. For example, workloads tend to increase when researchers are required to deposit data into a repository. During these times, priority is conveyed toward ensuring those data are clean, usable, accessible, and in the repository. This may force a shift away from, or a more tactical juggling of, publisher-mandated research depositions, which occur more frequently throughout the year.
On a basic level, data produced by a digital humanist is not very different from that of a research oncologist. They both contain swaths of files, many of which are specific to that discipline, with an assumed organizing principle, and standard descriptors. Naturally, the ultimate uses are quite different and, from the perspective of broad accessibility, not equal. Data from a humanist’s research may include simple tabular data and commonly used audio file formats, both of which can be easily checked and adapted for accessibility purposes; an oncologist’s dataset comprising proprietary microscopy imagery cannot. The toolbox of the practitioner and their acquired skills and dedication are the common denominator that strives to make the practice of curation agnostic–and sustainable–in its treatment of data.
Conclusion
As a service, Data Services is hoping to continue to expand how they support their research community. Based on researcher input, prevailing trends amongst institutional peers, and direction from Library leadership, some goals include:
- Anticipate future needs of researchers as new funder policies become active. This would include elements of data management, reproducible workflows, and curation, and Data Services would expand and tailor their efforts according to the needs of the researchers.
- Offer and expand new services such as statistical analyses, API, GitHub, data visualization, and bibliometrics.
- Improve access, findability, and quality of current institutional data collections.
- Embed the team and services in classroom instruction and faculty training for all disciplines.
- Develop new community-driven programs to engage students across all disciplines in the creation or analysis of data intended to inform public policy and aid the greater Rochester community.
- Calculate actual time (versus percentages ascribed in job descriptions) spent on various tasks within data management, reproducibility, and curation to assist the team in areas where growth is essential.
To support the above goals, Data Services is investigating the creation of a potentially dedicated physical space for the University of Rochester community to visit to receive support throughout the research data lifecycle. In addition, they aim to hire and cultivate student employees who can offer assistance to the community to sustainably expand the data-related services they offer. This would further provide experiential learning opportunities for the students and enrich their collegiate experience.
References
Cobey, K. D., Ebrahimzadeh, S., Page, M. J., Thibault, R. T., Nguyen, P.-Y., Abu-Dalfa, F., & Moher, D. (2024). Biomedical researchers’ perspectives on the reproducibility of research. PLOS Biology, 22(11), e3002870. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002870.
Korbmacher, M., Azevedo, F., Pennington, C. R., Hartmann, H., Pownall, M., Schmidt, K., Elsherif, M., Breznau, N., Robertson, O., Kalandadze, T., Yu, S., Baker, B. J., O’Mahony, A., Olsnes, J. Ø. S., Shaw, J. J., Gjoneska, B., Yamada, Y., Röer, J. P., Murphy, J., … Evans, T. (2023). The replication crisis has led to positive structural, procedural, and community changes. Communications Psychology, 1(1), 3. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-023-00003-2.
