01 Evaluating Data Quality
Challenges & Competencies

Thursday January 26, 2023

2:00-3:30 PM EST | 1:00-2:30 PM CST | 12:00-1:30 PM MST | 11:00-12:30 PM PST

Description

Imagine you’re the librarian asked to help a researcher find and use data for their project. What are your next steps to ensure no data quality problems surface?

Join data librarians from Princeton (Bobray Bordelon), Stanford (Ron Nakao), and Yale (Barbara Esty) for an introduction to building competencies for understanding and evaluating data quality. Documentation is a fundamental complement to usable data. Without good documentation, data has little, if any, value. The trio will describe the data-focused reference interview, discuss different sources of data, review examples of data documentation, and offer strategies for handling incomplete or inaccurate documentation. This session will prime attendees to the challenges librarians encounter with data quality issues and provide adaptable techniques for identifying and addressing these challenges.

Session Speakers

Bobray Bordelon

Economics & Finance Librarian/Data Services Librarian, Princeton University

Bobray Bordelon is Princeton University’s Economics & Finance/Data Services Librarian and is the former director of the Cultural Policy & the Arts National Data Archive. He represents the United States as Member at Large for IASSIST. He co-teaches the ICPSR “Providing Social Science Data Services: Strategies for Design and Operation”, serves on ICPSR Council and the Roper Archival Advisory Committee. He has been honored with the William H. Flanigan Award for Distinguished Service as an ICPSR Official Representative and the ALA BRASS Award for Excellence in Business Librarianship. He has authored many publications and is a frequent speaker at conferences.

Ron Nakao

Librarian, Economics, Political Science and Social Science Data, Stanford University Libraries

Ron Nakao serves as the librarian for economics, political science and social science data at Stanford University. He has been the representative to the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) and the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research for over 20 years. In 2019, he received the William H. Flanigan Award for Distinguished Service as an ICPSR Official Representative.

Barbara Esty

Data Librarian, Yale University

Barbara Esty has been the Data Librarian at Yale University Library since 2018. She assists faculty and students from across the university find, use, and manage data throughout the research data lifecycle. With twenty-five years of experience working in academic libraries, Barbara brings a broad perspective on data support with an interest on making data accessible to researchers at all levels.