Ten recommendations for libraries to get started with research data management

The LIBER e-science working group published "Ten Recommendations for libraries to get started with research data management".    



The Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER) installed the ‘E-Science working group’ in 2010 to investigate the role libraries can and should play in the field of E-Science. The group decided to focus on research data as it was felt to be the most urgent element of e-science that is of relevance to the community of (research) libraries.

Ten recommendations

1. Offer research data management support, including data management plans for grant applications, intellectual property rights advice and information materials. Assist faculty with data management plans and the integration of data management into the curriculum.



2. Engage in the development of metadata and data standards and provide metadata services for research data.

3. Create Data Librarian posts and develop professional staff skills for data librarianship.

4. Actively participate in institutional research data policy development, including resource plans. Encourage and adopt open data policies where appropriate in the research data life cycle.

5. Liaise and partner with researchers, research groups, data archives and data centers to foster an interoperable infrastructure for data access, discovery and data sharing.

6. Support the lifecycle for research data by providing services for storage, discovery and permanent access.

7. Promote research data citation by applying persistent identifiers to research data.

8. Provide an institutional Data Catalogue or Data Repository, depending on available infrastructure.

9. Get involved in subject specific data management practice.

10. Offer or mediate secure storage for dynamic and static research data in co-operation with institutional IT units and/or seek exploitation of appropriate cloud services.