Hands-on data science for librarians

Abstract

Hands-on data science for librarians (forthcoming 2023) is a guide to doing data science in R geared directly for library & information professionals. Librarians understand the need to store, use and analyze data related to their collection, patrons and institution, and there has been consistent interest over the last 10 years to improve data management, analysis, and visualization skills within the profession. However, librarians find it difficult to move from out-of-the-box proprietary software applications to the skills necessary to perform the range of data science actions in code. This book will focus on teaching R through relevant examples and skills that librarians need in their day-to-day lives that includes visualizations but goes much further to include web scraping, working with maps, creating interactive reports, machine learning, and others. While there’s a place for theory, ethics, and statistical methods, librarians need a tool to help them acquire enough facility with R to utilize data science skills in their daily work, no matter what type of library they work at (academic, public or special). By walking through each skill and its application to library work before walking the reader through each line of code, this book will support librarians who want to apply data science in their daily work.