Data, Open Science and libraries – The Data Deluge Column

For those immersed in the environment of academic and research libraries, the word “data” seems to be everywhere. One hears about linked data, big data, open data, proprietary data, research data, metadata, geospatial data, data repositories, etc.

Some libraries even have data librarians and data services departments.

The author of this column wonders if she were to collect all of the library and information science literature published in the past three years and plug it into a word cloud app, which of the two, i.e. “data” or “books”, would be displayed in a larger font.

The author suspects that the chances are more than good that “data” would come out on top.