Data Services Committee
Meeting Minutes
Monday, May 23, 2011
11-12:00
Library 428
Members:
x Merinda Hensley
x Karen Hogenboom, chair
□ Carissa Holler
□ Jenny Johnson
x Dawn Owens-Nicholson
x Sarah Shreeves
□ Maryalice Wu
Guest: MJ Han
1. Data purchase program: what changes are necessary in our process for next year?
We will move the schedule up and have a longer period to review applications so that we can
contact vendors during the review process rather than discovering access problems during the
acquisitions process. Karen will revise the documentation to reflect our decision to only buy
data that can be used across campus.
Publicity out: August 1
Application Deadline: September 15
Award Announcements: November 1
2. Using DDI metadata schema for ATLAS’s Illinois geodatabase
a. What is scope of database? On what level do we want to create metadata?
b. What DDI elements do we want to include?
The committee is creating DDI metadata for a few files so that the metadata and the data can be
used as examples for researchers on campus who are writing data management plans or
depositing their data in the library’s preservation repository or elsewhere. The committee is
also looking at metadata for the data sets that are being bought as part of the Data Purchase
Program or in the general course of collection development so that those files can be visible in
the library’s access tools.
We looked at the ATLAS database and identified the Chicago Neighborhood Data as a good place
to start: \\atlas-stor1\stats\OnlineArchive\ILCountyPolygon&Polyline\Chicago Neighborhoods.
There isn’t a note in the folder about the source of the data or how it has been manipulated, so
there may be some sleuthing involved in creating metadata for these files. The decision about
how granular the metadata should be is partially dependent on this investigation: the
committee didn’t feel that separate metadata for each file in the folder is necessary, but didn’t
reach a conclusion about exactly how granular to be in this particular instance. The committee
discussed creating a readme file for the Chicago Neighborhoods folder and eventually for more
of the folders so that as users explore the data they will have some guidance.
MJ Han came to the meeting with a list of minimal DDI data elements (posted on G: drive and
distributed to committee members by e-mail). The committee discussed adding to this list for
different types of data: GIS data fields might be a bit different than numeric data field, for
instance, or data generated by a researcher might get slightly different metadata than data
purchased by the library. Sarah volunteered Eric Johnson to mock up the DDI metadata for a
few data sets for the committee’s review.
We also discussed criteria for retention of data, particularly the balance between the effort of
recreating a processed data set versus the effort of creating good metadata for it. Subject
specialists in the library will also have good insights about what data in their field has permanent
value and should be retained.
3. Updates
a. There will be a half day workshop in the fall as part of the Year of Data
Stewardship. The group working on this will be focusing soon on
requirements gathering for curating data held across campus, and on raising
awareness and training researchers to create data management plans and to
understand the issues and best practices around data management and
curation.
b. collections issues
i. Social Explorer and Geolytics are accessible via the library’s Online
Research Resources page
ii. Library Systems can set up a secure folder within the data services
website where we can put the data we’ve purchased that is accessible
to everyone on campus. ATLAS also has a new server that can host
data.
c. The committee website is up
(http://www.library.illinois.edu/committee/dataservice/charge.html) and
agendas and minutes will be posted there.
d. There will be no meeting in June because of a conflict with the ALA Annual
Conference.