Hiring and Being Hired.

Or, what to know about the everything data librarian

When I started as a data librarian, I struggled with the magnitude of the job. It might just be me:
the new hire at a private college. My colleagues were excited to get a new line, so they built a job
description for someone with skills. Skills in stats, qualitative research, quantitative analysis,
campus politics, teaching and information literacy, reference and liaison work, collection
development, coding and software, and campus program development.
This is what data librarians fondly refer to as the Unicorn Librarian - that magical creature who
can be all things to all people.
The problem is, job ads notwithstanding, everything data librarians dont actually exist.
Me? I was promised my job would be mostly data, with a bit of liaison work. Yet when I got to
the lovely campus, everything quickly doubled. Youre a bright young fellow, I was told. I was
asked to take on assessment, with a side of research data management. I studied computer
programming, was put into the user experience group, started surveying faculty on data needs,
published and presented nationally, and analyzed our internal library metrics. Yet even as I tried
to keep up on the list of data tasks, I was told to take on more and more of the regular work of a
liaison librarian.
Why cant I handle five things at once? I thought. Why, after work hours, do I spend another
fifteen hours a week developing these skill setsand yet feel like its never enough? And why do
so much extra work, when the rewards are no higher than for a traditional liaison librarian?
I was close to stepping out of data for a more focused liaison role. Sometimes I still am.

Mission Creep and the Everything Data Librarian

Ive since met hundreds of librarians who work with data. And I can say: its not just you. First
off, this is a hot new subfield. Because of this, most libraries and hiring committees have no idea
what theyre really asking for, or the time it takes to master fifteen complex skillsets uncommon
in libraries.
As of 2014, dozens of research universities hire data librarians to simultaneously be a data
archivist, institutional repository manager, campus data services coordinator, and data
information literacy teacher. These are four very different skillsets.
Liberal arts colleges want one data librarian to a) know statistics and teach software tools, b)
manage data collections and service groups, c) deal with specialized reference and instruction,
and d) run internal metrics and assessment. Yet they often want this person to e) still take on a
liaison role comparable to what others do full-time.
In both of these cases, the unicorn librarian is asked to take on many jobsand therefore none
of them get done well. As Dorothea Salo writes, skill lists unaccompanied by information about

available resources and job context make it easy to blame the new librarian instead of doing
the broad honest analysis of the situation.
Data friends, we need to stop doing hours of unseen labor and unpaid reading in the evenings and
weekends. We need to negotiate our roles to a manageable level and pace ourselves. We need to
share our experiences in developing sustainable data roles, both on campus and with peer
institutions considering a new hire.
Mission creep hurts: we do and learn so much, so fast, that a sense of mastery in our roles, of
connection to campus, and of satisfaction in our jobs can be lacking.
It can also be dangerous for the library, which may ask one person to take on for five new roles
but support none of them effectively. Speaking strategically, do we really want to move beyond
helping people to access resources (our traditional role), and into tutoring research methods,
cleaning up after large grants, and taking over university publishing?
Some questions to ask before you hire a data librarian: How will a data librarian work with
partners on campus? Should a data lab be in the library, or in another building? Should data
librarians be teaching, or mostly doing reference and consults? How much time will we give a
data librarian to sort out these emerging issues, and how much support will we put behind them?
How much will we invest in retraining existing librarian to take on some aspect of data, rather
than asking the newest colleague to do the most complex work? How can we attract talented
librarians to develop the librarys data resources, without overcommitting ourselves on
campus?

A Sample Job Ad for the Everything Data Librarian

Dont believe me? Below are excerpts from a real job ad, posted within the last 21 months. The
wording has been paraphrased, paragraphs broken out into bulleted tasks. The ad has been
obscured because this isnt a critique of the institution whose in-depth advertisement was
clearly written by an informed search committee. Its one of the most nuanced ads Ive seenyet
its tremendously wide in range. I still dont think they know quite what theyre asking for. They
need to read Dorothea Salo again (http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2014/05/opinion/peer-to-peerreview/competency-lists-considered-harmful-can-we-rethink-them-peer-to-peer-review/).
If we break out the paragraphs into bullet points, and paraphrase, this job ad has the expectations
below:
Job 1: Instruction and Liaison Librarian:
Specifically mentioned:
Work cooperatively in a team of librarians
Be the line of communication and outreach to faculty in assigned areas
Provide general research support to students, faculty, staff
Serve as liaison to several subject areas

 Have deep knowledge and graduate degree in that subject area

Be willing to change curriculum / teaching methods (ACRL Framework?)
Teach information literacy and show strong instruction skills
Offer one-on-one consultations in liaison area
Create LibGuides, webpages, and other tutorials
Know government documents and maintain them
Maintain the Federal Depository Library Program resources
Do collection development for subject areas, and in general areas
Serve on the reference desk
Attend campus events to represent the library
Contribute to general routine tasks within that library team
Thats a classic liaison job, the kind that starts at 40 hours a week and quietly takes over your
life. It may take a few years for a new graduate to learn all of these roles and settle in, but its
doable. Theres a side of gov docs, but thats also normal as a liaison focus.
And yet, SAME job ad also wants the SAME person to be a
Job 2: Data Reference and Outreach Librarian:
Help faculty and students with data requests
Responsible for data not only in the social sciences and humanities, but also for any other
faculty and students who have a need
Promote library resources and data services across the campus
Connect to faculty and students on data, and develop library services in response
Study up on data on behalf of the library, and attend relevant conferences
Contribute to scholarship and research (likely in this new field)
Seek out user needs and present on them
Promote library data resources and services
Use data for library outreach
Play a role in library assessment and library metrics
Although not specified in the ad, this same librarian will also do the tasks below in:
Job 3: Campus Data Services Librarian
[Probably] provide support for research data management through teaching and outreach
[Probably] conduct a data census of current datasets and statistical resources on campus
[Probably] conduct a data needs assessment involving surveys, conversations, or
interviews with faculty and students
[Probably] assess current dataset holdings and revise data collection development guidelines
[Probably] liaise across campus to develop data services
[Probably] work with a repository manager or eScience librarian to train other librarians
in data skills

Setting up data services on a new campus is a full-time job in itself, especially if serving as a
cross-campus coordinator. Being *the* data reference person is also a substantial job. Library
schools dont yet teach these skills, and the new librarian will lack senior colleaguesso the
librarian will have to teach themselves from the ground up.
But it goes on. The SAME ad wants the SAME person to be a data tools expert and learning
technologist:
Job 4: The Data Viz Librarian (Learning Technologist):
The next section of the ad sounds like what learning technologists or academic IT people do,
even on a small campus:
keep tabs on qualitative and quantitative research tools
keep tabs on new statistics tools and academic technology
be prepared to teach people these new tech tools
advise people on appropriate data analysis tools and methods
provide tech support for librarians, faculty, students, and staff in these areas
Lets be clear. Learning technologists are amazing, and extremely busy. If several hundred
faculty and 2,000-10,000 students hear that a data librarian can train them in Excel, STATA,
NVIVO, SPSS, and/or data viz (forget about GIS; GIS is for geography and maps librarians)
well, you might just want this Data Tools Librarian to be separate from the Data Services
Librarian above.
(And of course, all of these tools will also take countless hours to learn).
But theres one final job hidden within this SAME job posting:
Job 5: The Quantitative Data Librarian (Methods Prof):
This person is asked to:
know statistics at a high level, and teach data + statistics skills
teach how to manipulate data in SPSS and Stata (years of prior experience will help)
teach these data and statistical tools to faculty, students, and staff
teach how to manipulate data in R (requires coding / programming skills)
strongly understand data structures (computational knowledge)
create and teach data visualizations
Let me gently suggest that if you actually know statistics, statistical programming, data
structures, data science, and/or data visualization well enough to jump in and teach students,
researchers and office professionals: you are amazing. Build a portfolio, my friend, and seek out
a $60-$100K starting salary in industry or tech roles. You can pro bono with poor kids on the
weekends if you want to save the world. Dont settle for a $40-$60K entry-level job that also
wants you to be three other people at once.

Data Librarians are Amazing Assets (But Lets Create a Single Clear Focus)
You know what? I get that new faculty or staff allotments are rare and precious things in
academic libraries. I get that. But the incredibly diverse skills and experiences requested of new
data librarians, without a clear peer group, and working as a team of one, can so easily lead to
burnout: should I focus on being a detail-minded data archivist? An engaging stats professor? A
young data science whiz? A patient campus coordinator? An all-knowing reference librarian?
All of the above? [Choking sounds].
The Everything Data Librarian requested in the job advertisement above joined a liberal arts
college. The challenges for data librarians at a major research institution remain just as real.
And yet it doesnt have to be this way. A few recommendations before you go:
Libraries, keep hiring data librarians. Theyre highly skilled and energetic. But the position
should be focused and pay closer to market rates for specialized skills. Asking for everything just
creates ambiguous roles and workplace conflict: even talented professionals cant develop ten
technical skillsets at once. And without clear guidelines for tenure and promotion, it sets your
most talented librarians up for stress and failure. Data librarians arent a separate creature from
everyone else, so all the more reason to make their job manageable and fairly defined.
Libraries, think about your market and your mission. Should librarians teach software (like
learning technologists) or quantitative research methods (like econ or poli-sci professors) in
addition to all of their regular tasks? Does it really benefit the library to take on major new roles
without additional staff? If not, where is the added value that libraries bring to data, and how
does it align with other offices on campus and with the core mission of the library?
Library school students, keep studying data. Its a growing area, deeper skills will mean better
pay, and the kinks will be ironed out through our work together. Libraries are doing amazing
things with data, and you can join us!
Data librarians, keep on keeping on. Slow down, build relationships, and switch jobs if
necessary. Keep building skills, but let yourself rest. I mean it. Find a community, and train up
bright-eyed young undergrads and MLIS interns to join you (especially students of color; they
need access to the most promising subsets of librarianship, too!). Ultimately, we increase the
value of academic libraries by bringing key resources to faculty and students, and this is a pie big
enough for all of us.
We need you. We just need you as one subfield-focused data librarian among a thousand
colleagues near and far - not as the Everything Data Librarian.
Sincerely, Alexis Johnson