Exploring the latest in research data services and research impact measurements with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign University Library

Events jointly organized by the Kyushu University Library and the Department of Library Science in the Graduate School of Integrated Frontier Sciences during three days in December brought advances in research data services and research impact assessment to the forefront for the researchers, students, and librarians from around Japan in attendance by featuring three visitors from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign University Library.

The speakers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign University Library, whose visit was organized under the framework of the Memorandum of Understanding for collaboration and strategic partnership between Kyushu U and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Illinois), shared their unique experiences managing and developing services at the largest public university research library in the United States.

The Illinois University Library has developed and provides advanced research data services to campus faculty and graduate students to organize and share data as well as to comply with United States federal agency data mandates. Collaborations between the library and scientists at Illinois have deepened the library’s ability to utilize library resources to measure and assess research impacts from publications, grants, patents, conference presentations and the other scholarly communications methods, making the Illinois University Library an excellent model for university libraries around the world.

The first of the events was the Research Data Services in Universities Symposium held December 5. Following opening remarks from Kazuo Miyamoto, director of the Kyushu University Library, Heidi Imker, director of Library Research Data Services at Illinois, introduced the research data services at Illinois. William H. Mischo, director of the Grainger Engineering Library Information Center at Illinois, and Mary C. Schlembach, chemistry and physical sciences librarian at Illinois, then introduced and outlined data management services and practices for researchers.

Next, Yoichi Tomiura, deputy director of the Kyushu University Library and director of the Science and Technology Library, kicked off a panel discussion with a brief overview of the current situation of and issues related to research data management and open data in Japan. Emi Ishita, associate professor at the Research and Development Division of the Kyushu University Library, moderated the panel, which featured four panelists and symposium participants actively discussing the direction of research data services at Japanese universities. The symposium was attended by 66 participants, with 22 coming from other Japanese universities and institutions.