Schedule: Full-time (37.5 hours per week, currently hybrid, with in-person required 3 days a week)
Rank: L1 - L3
Salary Range: 66,000 - 92,000
Position Focus:
In an ever-changing, data-intensive environment, the Data Librarian is a user-centered individual who will be responsible for the library’s data support program, working collaboratively with others at Yale involved in data education and policy. This position reports to the Head of Technology and Innovation and collaborates broadly with library colleagues.
Through consultation and collaboration, the Data Librarian works to enable faculty, students, clinicians and researchers to leverage research data resources to the fullest, providing information on acquisition and management of datasets for biomedical, clinical, and health sciences research. The librarian develops and provides in-person and online training, course- integrated instruction, workshops, research guides, and strategies to best use research data resources and tools and increase their visibility and usability. With an understanding of best practices and knowledge of a wide range of datasets and information resources, the librarian identifies the data needs of the Yale biomedical community. The librarian supports the discovery, use, and management of locally created and externally available data, such as appropriate discipline-specific health sciences repositories.
The Data Librarian serves as the in-house expert for staff and users on the research data management cycle, collaborating closely with the library’s Bioinformatics Hub and other librarians involved in research data at Yale. The librarian advises researchers how to manage their research data, navigate Yale University’s available data landscape, explain FAIR data and reproducibility principles, and adhere to federal or other grant funding agencies’ data management and public access policies and requirements. The librarian serves as a primary liaison between the library and research data groups within the Medical Center and is pivotal to defining and expanding the library’s role in supporting innovation in research data services, including biomedical informatics and precision medicine. The librarian coordinates the Medical Library’s data policies and evaluates and promotes data tools and services. The librarian collaborates with other Yale Library and University-wide data interest groups, such as Computational Methods & Data and the Office of Sponsored Projects, to promote awareness of data resources, products, and services among faculty, students and staff through outreach and embedded activities. The librarian represents the needs of the Medical Center on Yale Dataverse, Yale Library’s data repository service.
Essential Duties
- Develops and coordinates research data support services.
- Develops and leads instructional sessions about the use of various data resources and tools, and best practices for data access, collection, management, preservation and dissemination with a targeted focus on medical and health-related data.
- Provides data lifecycle support to faculty, students and staff in academic departments, schools and research center through consultations and in-person and virtual reference services
- Assists in locating external datasets, writing data management plans, and identifying data management resources. Offers data management education tailored to the needs of departments and labs.
- Monitors the landscape of data management plans required by funding agencies (National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, etc.) and major biomedical publishers and begins to design support services to respond to these requirements.
- As a representative of the library, interacts with various groups involved in data science, such as the Yale Center for Analytical Sciences, the Joint Data Analytics Team, and the Yale Center for Biomedical Data Science, and collaborates with other Yale University Library and University-wide data interest groups to promote awareness of data resources, products, and services among faculty, students and staff through outreach and embedded activities.
- Coordinates ongoing training and support for library staff on research data management fundamentals and services.
- Develops library collections of data and data-related materials.
- Develops and maintains awareness of data-centered strategies and technologies across the health sciences; attends relevant professional development activities and conferences
- May work across the different Yale campuses: Medical, Central, West, and Science campuses.
- May participate in the library’s long-established departmental liaison and/or Personal Library programs.
- May be required to assist with disaster recovery.
- May perform other duties as assigned.
Required Education and Experience
Master’s degree from an ALA-accredited library school. In selected instances, a degree in a related field such as informatics, data science, health sciences or statistics may be substituted for a master’s degree in Library Science.
Required Skills and Abilities:
- Demonstrated understanding of the research process used in biomedical and health sciences with particular focus on the research lifecycle of data. Demonstrated ability with biomedical data resources and tools used in medical education, biomedical research, and clinical practice.
- Demonstrated ability with data management best practices and familiarity with requirements from funding agencies and scholarly publishers.
- Knowledge of metadata standards and data archival procedures.
- Demonstrated excellent oral, written, and interpersonal communications and analytical ability.
- Demonstrated record of designing projects and bringing them to conclusion in a timely fashion. Ability working collaboratively and independently with varied groups within a complex organization and dynamic team environment.
Preferred Education, Experience and Skills:
- Two years of professional experience working in an academic health sciences or biomedical library or affiliated clinical/research environment.
- Knowledge of statistical and spatial software for data analysis and visualization and experience with online and network-based information systems.
- Public services experience and training, preferably in a health sciences library setting.