Won’t anyone think of the numbers?
I’m teaching a class this week (my first in several years; the fear and insecurity this brings is the subject for a whole other post). I was roped into it because a major component of this class is public opinion polling, and as data services librarian, this vaguely falls under my purview. This is my first try at incorporating numeric searching and sources into a bibliographic session; and for the most part, teaching people how to search numeric sources is just plain no fun. A couple of reasons why:
- Few aggregators: most sites exist to publish their own data, which means that metadata, searching and access vary wildly. You need to know what you’re looking for to find what you’re looking for.
- Using text to search numbers: by its very nature, numeric information is difficult to search for, as you’re limited to text elements, which may or may not include things like titles, questions asked or subjects. You need to find what you’re looking for without many words to find it with.
- Formats: again, there is no standardization among producers of things like polling data. Some provide Excel or SPSS, others only toplines, still others only charts and graphs. When you’ve found what you’re looking for, you might not have found what you need.
While there certainly has been some major improvements in data access and discovery tools (NESSTAR and DDI spring to mind), numeric searching is well behind its bibliographic counterpart. I can’t help but think that this is partly to do with the lack of promotion and use numeric sources get in libraries, so I ask you to prove me wrong. Does your library incorporate numeric sources/literacy into appropriate classes? Is there outreach and promotion being done on the topic at your library?
posted by Gillian @ 3:09 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Alas, data literacy is rather isolated in my library. Students and other researchers who rely heavily on data find their way to our data resource service (which is excellent, but understaffed). But for me and many of my colleagues, searching for and using data is rather mysterious and scary. I think this might be typical in academic libraries. Is it because most librarians are more comfortable with bibliographic information than statistical? Is it a lack of training in general? Is it because the management and distribution of data tends to originate outside the library world?
I do think that librarians on the whole do tend to shy away from numbers - most of us are more humanities-focused rather than science/math-focused, and numbers and stats are intimidating. This is seen in the literature, too, in discussions of research - or the lack thereof - in the library world.
I feel that the librarians who aware of this are limited; that is mainly the librarians who work in particular areas know the best ways to get at it. Depending on the students' needs I'd probably get stuck at the reference desk.
We do offer a workshop on Statistical Sources for faculty and grad students and I'm certain that some librarians do include it in their class workshops (e.g. Economics, finance, geography, etc.)
I took the WISLL (Winter Institute on Statistical Literacy for Librarians) course offered by the U of A, led by Chuck Humphrey. It was an intense four days, but I really learned a LOT about data. I have also been fortunate to receive training from Laine Ruus at the U of T Data Library. This specialized training, in combination with one-on-one situational sessions with Ryerson's own Sue Giles have helped me become more confident in mining data, understanding it, and most importantly, helping students use it.
Of course, cruising the cool stuff available on the Census website is a far cry from something like public use microdata files, or trying to make sense out of Datastream, but it's all in how often one uses it. As a marketing librarian, I have plenty of opportunity to test my skills. If I was the Enlgish Lit librarian? Yeah, I'd be lost in trying to guide a student in figuring out what the price of coal was over the last twenty years.
There are lots of training opportunities out there for librarians who want to learn more about data, and while I would highly recommend taking advantage, it's practice that really counts. If you are really keen, see if your local data librarian will hook you up with a bunch of example questions. And then make time in your schedule every week to try and find the answer. Data reference is super fun -- once you know your way around the varied products and related terminology!
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