Data and Libraries: Notes from an APSR data management forum

On August 8 2008 I attended an APSR workshop titled The Data Management Plan: Putting Policy into Practice.

This report provides highlights of interest to libraries.

• Summary
• Objectives of a data management plan
• Components of a typical plan
• Further information on each summary point

The forum gave examples of library metadata services for dataset cataloging and faculty liaison librarians providing various levels of data management support (publicising services, gathering information about data collections, developing project-specific data management strategies). In one case the university's data management coordinator is based in the university library.

On the legal and ip front, Anne Fitzgerald takes a very encouraging approach. She argues that the issues are known and are no different and no more challenging than those already successfully managed by large publishing houses. There is no reason why legal issues should be an impediment to data management within a university.

It was an informative day with some very useful discussion. Thanks to APSR for organising the event.