The study presents data and commentary from 26 academic research libraries about their current practices and future plans in purchasing and managing large datasets, both as part of their general collections and as agents for other departments of their universities.  The report provides detailed data on their past, current and expected future spending, as well as how such spending is financed. 

Survey participants break out data services demand and use by academic specialty, defining demand from the humanities, social sciences, business/finance, biological/medical sciences, engineering and art/architecture. Survey participants also name some of their recent data acquisitions and give their advice on how to deal with data publishers, how they share costs with other university departments, and how they cultivate data librarianship.  The study helps its readers to answer questions such as: how are libraries acquiring data librarianship expertise? How are they negotiating with data publishers and how prepared are these publishers to deal with libraries?  Is library spending for data growing and if so, which libraries are increasing spending and which are not?

Just a few of this 105-page report’s many findings are that:

• Social science sector demand for library data services was particularly strong from participants from the USA
• Research universities in the sample funded and fulfilled 49.7% of their data acquisition requests.
• 57.69% of the libraries in the sample employed a data librarian

A PDF edition of this report is currently available directly from Primary Research Group for $98.00; a print edition at the same price will be available for shipment on September 12th, 2021 and can be ordered now.  Site licenses are also available.  For a table of contents, list of participating institutions, the questionnaire and an excerpt – view the product page for this report at:  https://www.primaryresearch.com/AddCart.aspx?ReportID=663

Orders can also be emailed to: orders@primaryresearch.com or faxed to 212-412-9097. Reach us by phone at 212-736-2316 or order on our website at www.PrimaryResearch.com.