WLIC 2013 Paper: “Text & Data Mining – A Librarian Overview”

Here’s the seventh selection in our series featuring papers that will be presented at the IFLA World Library and Information Congress (WLIC) 2013 that begins in Singapore later this week.
The following paper was written by a legendary librarian (and someone we’re honored to call a friend, Ann Okerson) who is now a senior advisor at the Center for Research Libraries.

Today’s Selection

Title

Text & Data Mining – A Librarian Overview

Author

Ann Okerson
Center for Research Libraries

Source

IFLA Library

Abstract

Text and data mining offers exciting research opportunities over a broad range of fields. As large corpora of data accumulate, automated and semi-automated analysis of their contents (and often of many different data sets correlated together) reveals patterns and allows establishment of fact patterns invisible to the naked eye. Libraries and librarians have an exciting opportunity to support this work.
This paper reviews some of the possibilities for such work and outlines the challenges and the way ahead for librarians. One challenge lies in the terms by which data sets are licensed and made available to academic and other users; librarians need to be proactive in ensuring that these terms are favorable for the kind of use researchers will need and that the resources themselves are available in a format that allows innovative mining-based research. Another challenge is the need to support users who wish to engage in text and data mining with limited experience, especially when they approach data sets made available through library resources.
Librarians should develop the expertise to support their users by making data resources available to them on favorable terms and supporting their mining efforts

Direct to Full Text Paper (6 pages; PDF)

Previous WLIC 2013 Paper Selections

• Chronicles in Preservation: Preserving Digital News and Newspapers

• Born.Digital@British.Library: Opportunities and Challenges of Implementing a Digital Collection Development Strategy

• The Integration of Social Media and Reference Services

• Who is Looking After Your e-Journals? Telling Tales About The Keepers Registry & Your Digital Shelves

• Conference Paper Reports on a Study of Emerging Technologies Librarians

• MOOCs and the Library: Engaging with Evolving Pedagogy

Filed under: Academic Libraries, Associations and Organizations, Data Files, Journal Articles, Libraries, News, Patrons and Users, Preservation, Reports