Data Managers as Data Librarians
December 31, 2015
The tools of a librarian may be the key to better data governance, according to an article at InFocus titled, “What Librarians Can Teach Us About Managing Big Data.” Writer Joseph Dossantos begins by outlining the plight data managers often find themselves in: executives can talk a big game about big data, but want to foist all the responsibility onto their overworked and outdated IT departments. The article asserts, though, that today’s emphasis on data analysis will force a shift in perspective and approach—data organization will come to resemble the Dewey Decimal System. Dossantos writes:
“Traditional Data Warehouses do not work unless there a common vocabulary and understanding of a problem, but consider how things work in academia. Every day, tenured professors and students pore over raw material looking for new insights into the past and new ways to explain culture, politics, and philosophy. Their sources of choice: archived photographs, primary documents found in a city hall, monastery or excavation site, scrolls from a long-abandoned cave, or voice recordings from the Oval office – in short, anything in any kind of format. And who can help them find what they are looking for? A skilled librarian who knows how to effectively search for not only books, but primary source material across the world, who can understand, create, and navigate a catalog to accelerate a researcher’s efforts.”
The article goes on to discuss the influence of the “Wikipedia mindset;” data accuracy and whether it matters; and devising structures to address different researchers’ needs. See the article for details on each of these (especially on meeting different needs.) The write-up concludes with a call for data-governance professionals to think of themselves as “data librarians.” Is this approach the key to more effective data search and analysis?
Cynthia Murrell, December 31, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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