Understanding how to work with data is a critical skill for Electronic Resources Librarians, and it becomes more important as one’s career progresses. This workshop is designed to help those new to the field understand how to use data to answer questions and solve problems. It will introduce basic concepts of database design, such as primary keys, unique identifiers, and simple queries. Building on those concepts, this workshop will discuss different types of ERM data and where it might be kept in different library systems setups and will walk participants through how to interact with that data to get answers. In addition to learning how to interact with different types of data, we will also discuss ways to present results of data analysis to different stakeholders, such as university administrators, subject librarians, and vendors. The goal of this workshop is to empower librarians to explore how they can use and collect data at their institutions.
Following the workshop, participants will be able to:
- identify data points they can use to answer questions about E-Resource Management.
- create basic data queries and visualizations.
AUDIENCE LEVEL: Beginner
PARTICIPATION:The goal of this workshop is to make participants more comfortable and more independent using data. As such, participation towards the beginning of the workshop when more introductory content is introduced will consist of polling/quizzes during the lecture. As we get into ERM specific information, participants will break into small groups to investigate different types of ERM data. Towards the end of the workshop, participants will again break into small groups to go through a data analysis scenario and then we will come back together and each group will share how they approached their scenario.
Meet Your Course Instructor
Vanessa French
Lehigh University Libraries
Vanessa French is currently the Associate University Librarian for Library Access and Collection Management at Lehigh University Libraries. She earned her MLS and MIS degrees at Indiana University- Bloomington and began her career as an Electronic Resources Librarian at Butler University. During her time at Butler University, she also held the roles of Collections Strategy Librarian and Head of Resource and Systems Strategies. Vanessa has attended ER&L either in person or virtually every year since 2016 and has presented in a variety of different session types, including other pre-conference workshops in the past.