Academic librarianship as a data profession: The familiar and unfamiliar in the data role spectrum
Open accessAbstract
Andrew Cox reflects on the growing importance of data in the work of academic librarians and information professionals. He articulates a “data role spectrum” that embraces familiar skills sets like information/data literacy, training, collection management and metadata, but throws many unfamiliar competencies into the mix: data curation, integrity, analysis and visualisation. Data management offers huge opportunities to extend and enhance the skills and knowledge academic librarians have had for years. New wine in old bottles perhaps. Keywords: Research Support, Research Data Management, Data, Data Literacy, Data Curation
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Librarians play an important role in data governance, quality and sustainability.
“Librarians play an important role in data governance, quality and sustainability.”
From Librarians’ roles and responsibilities in managing data within academic libraries: A role-based data governance model (2026) · cites this paper as Cox (2018)
This aligns with prior studies highlighting librarians' involvement in institutional reporting and data services.
“This aligns with prior studies highlighting librarians' involvement in institutional reporting and data services (Ahmed & Othman, 2021;Amanullah & Abrizah, 2023;Cox, 2018).”
From Librarians’ roles and responsibilities in managing data within academic libraries: A role-based data governance model (2026) · cites this paper as Cox, 2018
Cites
Competencies for bibliometrics
Cox, A. M., Gadd, E., Petersohn, S., & Sbaffi, L. (2017) · Journal of Librarianship and Information Science · doi:10.1177/0961000617728111 · Cited by 60 · see citing works
Self-citationExploring Research Data Management
Cox, A., & Verbaan, E. (2018) · Facet eBooks · doi:10.29085/9781783302802 · Cited by 37 · see citing works
Self-citationEleven quick tips for finding research data
Gregory, K., Khalsa, S. S., Michener, W. K., Psomopoulos, F. E., de Waard, A., & Wu, M. (2018) · PLoS Computational Biology · doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006038 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
Exploring research data management
Steele, G. (2019) · Journal of the Australian Library and Information Association · doi:10.1080/24750158.2019.1575169 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Dooley, J. (2015) · Issue Lab (Candid) · doi:10.25333/c3nw57 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
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Maturing research data services and the transformation of academic libraries
Cox, A. M., Kennan, M. A., Lyon, L., Pinfield, S., & Sbaffi, L. (2019) · Journal of Documentation · doi:10.1108/jd-12-2018-0211 · Cited by 139 · see citing works
Self-citationData librarianship in South African academic and research libraries: a survey
Chiware, E. R. T. (2020) · Library Management · doi:10.1108/lm-03-2020-0045 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Data Curation in Academic Libraries as Part of the Digital Revolution
Koltay, T. (2019) · Zagadnienia Informacji Naukowej - Studia Informacyjne · doi:10.36702/zin.12 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Scholarly Communication Competencies: An Analysis of Confidence among Australasia Library Staff
Kingsley, D. A., Kennan, M. A., & Richardson, J. (2022) · College & Research Libraries · doi:10.5860/crl.83.6.966 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Identifying new roles for academic libraries in supporting data-intensive research
Koltay, T. (2020) · Bibliosphere · doi:10.20913/1815-3186-2019-4-97-102 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Supporting Data Discovery: Comparing Perspectives of Support Specialists and Researchers
Sun, G., Friedrich, T., Gregory, K., & Mathiak, B. (2024) · Data Science Journal · doi:10.5334/dsj-2024-048 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Ayoib, A., Ismail, M. A., & Abdullah, N. (2026) · Malaysian Journal of Library and Information Science · doi:10.22452/mjlis.vol31no1.2
“This aligns with prior studies highlighting librarians’ involvement in institutional reporting and data services (Ahmed & Othman, 2021; Amanullah & Abrizah, 2023; Cox, 2018).”
Τhe Exception of Text and Data Mining from the Academic Libraries Standpoint
Papadopoulou, M.-D., Kolotourou, K., & Βottis, M. (2021) · Open Journal of Social Sciences · doi:10.4236/jss.2021.95028
Workplace Gossip Among Dog Trainers
Mongale, L., & Carrim, N. M. H. (2023) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-981-99-2691-6_10
Some issues of data literacy and AI literacy in the library
Koltay, T. (2025) · Knižnica Časopis pre knihovníctvo · doi:10.68362/202136
- Authors
- Cox, A.
- Affiliations
- University of Sheffield (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Cox, Andrew
- ORCID
- Cox, Andrew
- Venue
- eLucidate
- Publisher
- University of Alberta Libraries
- Published
- 2018-09-01
- Volume
- 15
- Issue
- 1-2
- ISSN
- 1742-5921 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2915173884
- Cited by
- 9
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 2
- FWCI
- 2.02
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc-sa
- Locations
- eLucidate (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Research Data Management Practices
- Social Sciences › Library and Information Sciences › Library Science and Information Literacy
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Library Science and Information
- Keywords
- academic librarianship, data literacy, data curation, data management, research support, data integrity, data analysis, data visualization, metadata, collection management, librarian competencies
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