Integrating Discovery and Access to Canadian Data Sources. Contributing to Academic Library Data Services by Sharing Data Source Knowledge Nation Wide

Abstract

This paper will describe the national project that has documented and indexed over 200 online data repositories in Canada. Available repositories cover the life and biological sciences, Chemistry, Physics, and Medical sciences, but also Mathematics and Computing in addition to other subjects. They provide data from academic, government and private research organizations. They represent a vast pool of openly accessible data available to academic researchers as well as citizen scientists. Access to available data is an increasingly important part of scientific research and student exploration. Academic libraries across the country are working to ensure that they can effectively discover and provide access to data sources. The paper will look at shared efforts to provide integrated search tools for these Canadian data sources, through regional consortia, government initiatives, and cooperative national projects. Many academic libraries large and small lack the expertise to work with a wide range of specialized data. This paper will focus on efforts to share specialized knowledge and expertise across the country, rather than duplicating effort at each individual library. This process is allowing the development of shared library reference services for data resources. The paper will look at the existing library program for sharing national government data knowledge. It will look at how this program is being used as a model and a platform to share reference training and expertise for other data sources.