Library Science Talks

Libraries' adventures in data wonderland: from curation to analytics

Abstract

"Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!". Libraries have undergone big changes in little time, adapting and evolving to the new digital landscapes. Digital curation is an ever growing role for libraries, ensuring that data is looked after from the moment of creation and throughout its lifecycle adding value to it and ensuring permanent access. Curation can be augmented using analytics as these two worlds blend well at many levels. For instance, data can be curated using supervised learning to categorize it, or clustering methods that support the process of entity disambiguation, or using off-the-shelf AI for automatic transcription of audio, photo tagging, sentiment analysis or keyword extraction from text. In addition to curating data using analytics, once data is well curated, a wide range of analytical methods and tools can provide insights into the way in which our organizations work and eventually those insights can be used to guide strategy. This talk will discuss the previous views illustrating them with activities from the DataLab at the Library of Fundación Juan March, a section dedicated to curation and analytics in a cultural organization devoted to the promotion of humanistic and scientific culture.

Bio

Luis Martínez-Uribe is Data Scientist at the Fundación Juan March, a non-profit organization devoted to the promotion of humanistic and scientific culture based in Madrid, Spain. He leads the DataLab, a section of the Library dedicated to digital curation and analytic projects. Prior to this, Luis was Data Librarian at the London School of Economics and held research data management roles at the University of Oxford, Institute Juan March and the Australian National Data Service. Luis holds a BSc in Mathematics, a MSc in Information Systems and is currently undertaking a PhD in Sociology focused on the development of quantitative methods for the sociological analysis of Big Data from libraries.

The Shift towards a Library of Data 

For many centuries, solid units of texts were the center around which libraries commonly worked and evolved. Scholarly texts developed certain formats and were published within certain workflows, both of which remained stable over a long period of time. Responsibilities within the system of scholarly publication, dissemination, and archiving were clearly distributed between scholars, publishers, and librarians. 

Over recent decades, and under the growing influence of digitization, we watch this system dissolve. Libraries are currently mid-way through a long phase of transition: this transition affects nearly all library-related fields of work, and can be described from different perspectives. One main aspect is the shift towards and the consequences of a diversification in the formats of scholarly outputs, which has invited librarians to take up new responsibilities and to broaden their expertise while transforming their libraries into libraries of data. The role of librarians within the research process is therefore changing, with new services developing in response to scholarly needs and new technical systems requiring implementation. 

In our talk we will describe practical approaches, experiences, and progress made in our research library at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in recent years.

Research data management at the EPFL

Research data management is part of the EPFL Library since several years. During this talk, we will take time to walk together through a typical day of the RDM team that highlights the very heterogeneous questions and support actions such a service faces.

Digital Humanities: neue Formen der Integration der Bibliotheken in geisteswissenschaftliche Forschungsprozesse.

Abstract

Wissenschaften im 21. Jahrhundert werden als datenintensive Wissenschaften beschrieben. Das gilt im wachsenden Masse auch für die Geisteswissenschaften. Datenintensive Wissenschaften sind aber nur dann mehr als ein Versprechen, wenn sie modelliert werden können. Dazu müssen Daten ein repräsentatives und balanciertes Korpus bilden, sie müssen formalisiert, visualisiert und nachgenutzt werden können. Bibliotheken verfügen über grosse Mengen verlässliche Daten, die sich zu Korpora verdichten lassen, formalisiert und geteilt werden können. Damit werden Bibliotheken zu einem wesentlichen Teil einer datenintensiven Geisteswissenschaften. Mein Vortrag skizziert die neuen Formen der Integration der Bibliotheken in geisteswissenschaftliche Forschungsprozesse.

Biographie

Gerhard Lauer ist Professor für Digital Humanities an der Universität Basel. Nach einem Studium der Germanistik, Philosophie, Musikwissenschaft und Judaistik  wurde er mit einer Arbeit zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte im Exil promoviert und einer Arbeit zur Literaturgeschichte des frühneuzeitlichen Judentums habilitiert. Von 2002 bis 2017 lehrte er Deutsche Philologie an der Universität Göttingen, seit 2017 Digital Humanities in Basel. Zuletzt erschienen „Wilhelm von Humboldt. Schriften zur Bildung“ (2017), „Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. Race and Natural History 1750-1850“,  (2019, hg. zus. mit Nicolaas Rupke), "Lesen im digitalen Zeitalter" (im Druck).

UN Knowledge and Learning Commons

A Step in the Evolution of a Library: The Knowledge & Learning Commons of the United Nations Geneva

Located in a wing of the famous Palais des Nations, a neo-classical and art-deco building of the 1930s dedicated to peace through diplomacy, the Library of the United Nations Geneva serves diplomats, conference delegates and thousands of researchers around the world every year.
In 2019, the Library launched the Knowledge & Learning Commons for UN Geneva in its building. The initiative leverages existing spaces, information resources and learning and event management capacities and networks to encourage diplomats and staff to innovate, collaborate and co-create on topics relevant to professionals in the area of multilateralism.
This presentation will give you an insight into the concept of a library commons, the path of implementation taken at the United Nations Geneva, and the opportunities and outcomes that it can generate.

Sigrun Habermann is head of the Library Services Section of the United Nations Library Geneva, where she oversees knowledge services provided online and in person to UN staff, diplomats, and researchers from outside the organization. She also manages the Library’s flagship discussion series “Library Talks” and participates in developing and leading the “Knowledge & Learning Commons” initiative.
In previous positions, Habermann managed the League of Nations and United Nations Archives and records management service and worked in various public and academic libraries, as well as in documentation centers in Germany and the United States.
She holds a Master of Science in International Relations from Troy State University, North Carolina branch, a master’s degree in Library and Information Science from the State University of New York, Albany, which she accomplished on a Fulbright scholarship, and a bachelor’s degree in information science from Hochschule der Medien, Stuttgart, Germany.

From Demat to Remat: Designing the post-digital library

Like many, the Library of the Natural History Museum in Paris has invested in the acquisition of electronic documentation and the digitization of its holdings over the past 20 years in order to match researchers’ expectations and keep up with the massive dematerialization of scientific publications and data in the field of natural sciences. And it has been quite successful indeed, since researchers barely use the physical library anymore. What should we do now with our empty seats, reading rooms and reference staff? Should we close the Library or try to think differently about its mission and services? Designing the post-digital library and revisiting the potential of its materiality is not about going backwards. The digital experience and the dematerialization of cultural transactions has impacted our users’ lives in many ways. There are things people are starting to miss, senses that need to be reactivated. What if the library could be a good place to start addressing this sense of loss and look at the physical and social experience of a reading room or the discovery and manipulation of original, heritage collections as legitimate services of their own?

Located in between green houses, exhibition galleries, a botanical garden and a zoo, the Museum’s Library keeps exceptional collections including archives, manuscripts, sculptures, drawings, photographs, scientific instruments and even dead and living animals and plants - all stored in the stacks and backstage. The caretakers of this hidden treasure are also incredible storytellers. Our vision is that the future of the Library may somehow lie behind this scene, in the emotional and material strength and inspiration of this heritage and the passion of the people in charge of their conservation. Making the library “hyper-material” again may be our chance and our next challenge. This presentation will develop the vision of a post-digital library focused on human experience and tell the story of how its team has successfully engaged major organizational changes in order to start experimenting new forms of mediation and reach a totally new public.

Gildas ILLIEN, Director of libraries, Deputy Director of collections, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris.

The opening of the Helsinki Central Library Oodi in December 2018 was a grand event in whole Finland, gathering 55 000 people to the library during two days. More success followed, the first million of visitors was broken at the end of March 2019. The same pace is still continuing.
Very attractive to our Mayor and other politicians is the fact that Oodi brings a lot of good reputation to Helsinki. Only in 2018, the calculatory media coverage was worth of nearly 11 million euros.
This popularity is a result of decisive and ambitious planning. I would argue that this is in the air – Helsinki is not the only city building a big central library: Aarhus, Oslo, Gent... These open buildings are an answer to a clear need in the society. In practice, the success consisted of participation of citizens, quality architecture, systematic PR work and political understanding, which was greatly pushed by the covering support from citizens.
We planned a library with citizens, not for citizens. Now they really feel ownership of the library.

Tuula Haavisto is the Cultural Director of the City of Helsinki, Finland. From March 2013 to the end of July 2017, she served as the Library Director in Helsinki. Before that, she worked in the Tampere City Library in the same role. 1997-2006 Haavisto run her own consultancy ‘Tuula Haavisto Library Knowledge T:mi’, working on domestic and international projects, training and development. On 1987-97 she was the Secretary General of the Finnish Library Association. Before that period, she had librarian and researcher posts in the Ministry of Environment, Academy of Finland and others.
Ms Haavisto is Master of Social Sciences from Tampere University (1983). She has had numerous positions in professional organisations, given articles and lectures and run other activities in Finland and abroad during her career. At the moment she is Chair of the Steering Group of Data Management of the National Library of Finland.

Die wachsende Rolle von Daten in unseren Nutzergruppen und Organisationen verlangt von uns allen, im verantwortlichen Umgang und im Erhalt digitaler Daten selbst aktiv werden. Die Herausforderung scheint gewaltig zu sein, aber die gute Nachricht ist, dass wir es nicht alleine tun müssen. Ein verteiltes Netzwerk von Fachleuten und Lernenden auf der ganzen Welt entwickeln zunehmend Wege, um gemeinsam Erfahrungen zu sammeln sowie Ressourcen zu teilen und zu bündeln. Auf diese Weise können wir die Herausforderungen angehen und einen dauerhaften Zugang zu unserem digitalen Erbe ermöglichen.

Dieser Vortrag gibt einen Überblick zu den Grundprinzipien des Datenmanagements und eine Orientierung darüber, wie man sich mit der internationalen Gemeinschaft von Experten verbinden und mit ihr zusammenarbeiten kann, um die Arbeit im verantwortlichen Umgang mit Daten und im Datenerhalt zu entwickeln und verfeinern.

Dr. Trevor Owens ist Bibliothekar, Forscher, policy maker und Dozent und arbeitet im Bereich digitale Infrastrukturen für Bibliotheken. Owens ist der erste Leiter des Digital Content Management in der Library of Congress. Darüber hinaus unterrichtet er Graduiertenseminare in digital history für das American University’s History Department und digital preservation für das University of Maryland's College of Information, in dem er auch Forschungspartner des Digital Curation Innovation Center ist.