Transform Your Mindset: TS Librarians as Data Scientists

Abstract

The standard library school cliche is that we went so we didn’t have to do any math! Yet with machine learning, deep learning, algorithms, text mining, programming languages, data science, data encoding, data transfer, and linked data pervasive in our personal and professional environments, our career futures hinge on our computational skills—skills we might think we don’t have (or don’t want to have). This session suggests that Technical Services (TS) librarians, in particular, need to transform their thinking on this issue, and guides them through the process of realizing they are already doing most of these things. Data science is a good example of basic skills TS librarians are already primed with; translating those fundamentals into data science methodologies will transform data manipulation and analysis in libraries. Armed with confidence, attendees will leave ready to fill in the knowledge gaps they do have to be the best caretakers and advocates for their libraries' data.