In this talk, we present our perspectives as librarians at the University of Southern California (USC) in engaging with science and engineering students as they negotiate a changing landscape of information and data literacy. One of us has liaison responsibilities in chemistry and the biological sciences and the other is the head of USC’s busiest library, Leavey Library, which provides a wide array of programming and services to undergraduate and graduate students. Together, we organized a data manipulation workshop this spring, targeted toward faculty and graduate students in chemistry and biology. Many science and engineering fields generate a lot of research data and, increasingly, students and faculty wish to know how to manage and manipulate data. We decided to organize this workshop based on administering a survey to faculty and students, the results of which showed a high level of interest in learning data skills. Our presentation will focus on  what we learned from collaboration with faculty, students, and an external organization (Data Carpentry). Using the data we gathered before and after the workshop, we assess how our experience organizing this workshop can be used to help students succeed in a data-intensive environment. Some of the questions we plan to explore are: 1) How has experimentation changed in the past decade that requires evolving skills on the part of students? 2) What are the differences between faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students in terms of data literacy? 3) What role can librarians play in optimizing student success in the lab and beyond?

Evolving data needs in chemistry and bio-sciences: What role can a librarian play in creating student success?

2019 Fall National Meeting

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