Numeric & Geo-Spatial Services Proposal
Prepared by Tiffani R. Conner
University of Connecticut
Executive Summary

Challenge

The University of Connecticut seeks to become one of the top public universities in the nation. UConn is considered competitive at the undergraduate level, but lags noticeably behind in research and graduate programs. The provost has stated UConn needs to strengthen scholarly activity and focus resources on research and scholarly productivity. According to the 2004 LibQual+ results, UConn Libraries were rated 6.67 by the faculty regarding satisfaction relative to learning, research, and/or teaching needs, and only 7.09 from graduate students. The Roper Center for Public Opinion has made a request to establish a partnership with the library to facilitate the use of its archives. Faculty from various social science disciplines have expressed a need for more integrated social science data services, with newly hired faculty in Political Science making the most requests. UConn Libraries currently provide robust GIS services which are recognized and supported by campus entities; however Social Science Data Service has not received the same level of commitment.

Action

In an effort to determine the level and type of social science data service necessary to be competitive, an investigation of institutional programs and library services was conducted in November 2004. The resulting document contains estimates of the Social Science Data and Geographic Information Systems (SSD/GIS) available at different institutions within the aforementioned groups. Elements of comparison include: US News & World Report Ranking, ARL Ranking, Student Population, SSData/GIS Program (academic), Data Services (library), GIS Services (library), Data/GIS Services together, Access/Instruction, Librarian Designated, and Software instruction. The service proposed herein will both meet the needs of new faculty and enhance the quality of education for students. This service will be a working partner with MAGIC and will facilitate the expansion of GIS and SS Data among scholars and researchers.

Summary of Services

Social Science Data and GIS services at the institutions investigated exist in various stages. All institutions offer programs, at the undergraduate and graduate level, that necessitate use and analysis of these data. Services provided through the libraries range from no designated service nor staff to organized service with 1-2 dedicated staff, equipment and laboratory facilities, and searchable data catalogs. UConn offers comparatively high GIS services but relatively low SSD services. Institutions in our current peer group offering highly developed SSD/GIS programs include Minnesota and Rutgers, with Florida as the high performer in our future peer group, and UW-Madison in the aspirant category. The most highly developed SSD/GIS programs exist at three of the top 5 ARL libraries ( Michigan, Toronto, and Yale). Across the board, GIS services are the most highly developed in the majority of libraries.

Proposed Service

• Create an explicit social science data service
• Combine service with MAGIC, rename collective service—Numeric & GeoSpatial Data Services
• Two designated staff, Sociology Librarian (SSD) and Map Librarian (GIS)
• Locate in Map & Geographic Information Center
• Provide instruction, archiving, data catalogs, tutorials, and data sets
• Engage in outreach efforts to identify and secure partners
• Purchase software licenses and server for instruction and archiving, respectively

Projected Timeline (4 year plan)

FY 04-05 Idea & Planning

• Form NGSDS Team (working group)- commitment of initial contacts
• Role out data services subject page (http://www.lib.uconn.edu/online/research/bysubject/dataserv.htm)
• Identify campus needs
• Identify potential partners
• Conceptualize outreach efforts
• Estimate costs
• Secure data & GIS training for team as needed
• Establish working plan—determine focused service and future vision

FY 05-06 Outreach, Funding, and Partner Identification

• Initiate targeted outreach efforts
• Showcase NGSDS service plan to likely partners and collect additional information
• Identify funding sources (partners, grants, etc)
• Identify state, national and international data sets for acquisition
• Purchase equipment
• Investigate metadata standards for digital data library
• Solicit faculty and graduate data sets

FY 06-07 Process & Instruction

• Begin building digital data library
• data set acquisitions continued—process secured/planned
• Streamline UConn produced data set archiving process
• Release data set archive to public
• Offer semester workshops (librarian or other instructor)

FY 07-08 Full Functionality

• Dedicated data services librarian(s)
• Digital data library and data set archive actively and routinely being populated

Library Constituents (in addition to designated staff)

• Liaison Librarians
• Information Technology Services (ITS)