Libraries in Europe are taking steps to support research data management (RDM) but technical services are not fully established. Libraries provide some storage and identification services for research data based on a recent study, but only store approximately 1/10 of research data and have data repositories. Moving forward, libraries want to take on more curation roles but determining what data to preserve or discard requires significant resources and collaboration between institutions to address technical and metadata issues.

1. from point zero to point one
libraries and RDM in Europe
Giannis Tsakonas
Library & Information Center, University of Patras, Greece / LIBER Executive Board Member
@gtsakonas
“Research data management: interoperability, collaboration, and the research library role”
Jan. 23, 2018, Porto, Portugal

2. Where we stand
• A group of heterogenous -in so many senses- institutions have been called to
address the RDM issues and lead the way to an open field of transparent, user
friendly and viable management of RD.
• What unites these institutions is the common vision of a FAIR condition for RD.

3. What we do
• The current stand of libraries has been portrayed in the recent study by Tenopir
et al [http://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10180].
• European libraries are implementing mostly “soft” services, such development of
DMPs, citation practices, etc.
• Technical services not fully established.
• Acknowledging the importance of RDM and its services
• But, at the time being, RDM policies are not featured in all institutions.

4. What we can do
• Libraries provide storage and preservation facilities (4/10 according to the
Tenopir et al. study)
• OpenDOAR reports 700 Institutional Repositories.
• Approximately 1/10 stored data (74 in Europe, globally 183)
• OpenAIRE reports 77 Data Repositories
• Most provide permanent identification services as well

5. What we want to do
• Any kind of curation consumes a lot of resources.
Determining what to discard or dispose of items can be harder decisions than
those at the time of acquisition [Borgman]
• "Collection development" issues are hard to implement. It requires considerable
thought by many collaborating agents.
• Technical heterogeneity and metadata quality, just like in the CH domain, need
to be addressed

6. Final thoughts
• Libraries as organizational
interfaces
• Front ends to communicate
with researchers,
institutions, publishers,
funding bodies, legal
entities, etc.
• Combat defragmentation
• Collect, process and align
user requirements
• Assist short/long term data
preservation