Data Management from the Outsider’s Perspective: Building a Data Management Team in a Small University Library

Up to this point, research data management efforts have been concentrated in comparatively large, resource-rich institutions. However, as smaller institutions, especially smaller university libraries, begin to build research data management programs, increasingly diverse teams of practitioners will be needed to support those programs. For example, despite the robustness of its grant support research programs, Carnegie Mellon (CMU) has a small library – both in terms of funding and staffing. Because of these limited resources, the establishment of a research data management program required not only the appointment of a data services librarian, but the creation of a new, informal team featuring library staff members previously unaffiliated with the data management role, faculty researchers, campus units unaffiliated with the library, and service providers.