Hello Friends, It’s Been A While

Circular image of a yellow flower in full bloom slightly out of focus due to movement in the breeze. Decorative.

It’s been a little over four years since my last update. While I know some people who kept posting, or forced themselves to, for me it was important that I prioritize other things. Much of my time has focused around my, and my family’s, physical and mental health, moving, work, cleaning, more work, fixing things, and trying to support others to the best of my abilities. I had hoped to put out an update this summer but due to ridiculous rate hikes by my previous website host, I ended up having to move my entire website. This took quite a bit of research and back and forth with tech support as I didn’t have the funds to pay someone to do the move for me. The biggest part of the move was going through every post and page and fixing all the errors that crept in due to changes in how websites are coded. To add to the labor of moving the site, the move also destroyed most of my image descriptions, but not in a consistent manner so I’ve had to go back through and manually refresh, or in some cases retype, every image description on every page. If I missed an image description please let me know. All this moving and updating took all the time I’d hoped to spend in updating this website.

What has Kiyomi been up to?

This is an excellent question. It feels like yesterday and forever ago that the pandemic started in 2020. Since then many projects and activities have been delayed, canceled, or revised. I don’t know how I accomplished anything, but eventually, by sequencing things so that at any given moment I only had to think about what was in front of me I made progress. Last year my husband had surgery and I took quite a bit of time off to deal with that. I also took the time to work through the formal ADA accommodation process. I’ve always been fortunate to be accommodated by my supervisors as needed without a formal plan. To ensure that doesn’t change in the future I decided to work through the process while I knew I had a supportive supervisor. I’ll expand upon this more in an upcoming book chapter, but please know that being in pain should not be a daily thing, seriously go to your healthcare professional. Physical and occupational therapy can help alleviate many different types of pain even if, like me, the root cause is not completely understood.

Obligatory list of accomplishments since late 2019

Here are some of the things I’ve been up in the last 4years.

Issues in Data Management

Data Management Circuit Board Image
How are you saving your data?

Data Management has been a hot topic for several years. Many people have written about self-motivated archiving versus mandated arching. A significant issue is that of cost, who is going to foot the bill for storing and maintaining all this data that we so blithely generate?

Librarians and information technology professionals have collaborated with researchers to build and maintain domain and institutional repositories, making them the perfect people to provide consultation on the creation of data management plans.

Free Resources:

Data Management libraries web page This is the webpage we provide for researchers who are looking for information on creating data mangement plans. (Please note some of this information is specific to my university.)

Data Management LibGuide This guide provides detailed explanations about many data management terms and issues. It also provides links to many other resources on data management and curation.?(Please note some of this information is specific to my university.)

Suddenly I’m consulting on data management plans Handout This handout was created for a short SLA webcast where I was asked to briefly go over everything you need to know to consult on data management plans. This checklist was created to help consultants ensure that they’ve checked all their bases when offering a consultation.

FigShare is good option for researchers who do not have an institutional or domain repository and need somewhere to put their data. It is securely backed up and researchers can determine when and how much of their data is shared on an item by item basis.

Professional Development
Together with my colleague Dee Ann Allison I am co-teaching two ACRL eLearning events focused on data management plans.

What You Need to Know about Writing Data Management Plans (April 7-25, 2014)
This course teaches participants about the elements of a successful data management plan, and provides practice critiquing data management plans in a supportive learning environment where no grant funding is at stake.? Join two experienced data management plan consultants with experience in liaison librarianship and information technology as they demonstrate how all librarians have the ability to successfully consult on data management plan.

An Introduction to Data Management Plans (May 27, 2014)
Examine the elements of a data management plan, learning about data repository and preservation options, discuss the pros and cons of providing boilerplate language to researchers, and learn about tips and tricks for dealing with unique data management issues.