This report, based on data predominantly from interviews with deans and library directors of US colleges and universities, presents expansive data and commentary on what upper library management thinks of the library’s role in data management and what its plans are for data librarianship. The study presents data on the number of librarians performing extensive data librarianship functions, as well as a description of the types of services that they are providing. In addition, survey participants report on trends in spending on library data services over the past two years, and their plans for the next two years. Data in the report is broken out by many useful criteria including college/university type or Carnegie class, as well as enrollment level, tuition, public/private status and other variables.
Just a few of this 43-page study’s many findings are that:
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Libraries from institutions enrolling more than 20,000 students employed a mean of 7.54 librarians for whom data librarianship was a significant part of their work responsibilities
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Librarians over the age of 65 were more supportive of increased spending on data services than were their younger counterparts
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46.67% of doctoral level universities plan to spend more or much more on data librarianship over the next two years.