E-Science librarianship refers to a role for librarian

Librarian

A librarian is an information professional trained in library and information science, which is the organization and management of information services or materials for those with information needs...

s in e-Science

E-Science

E-Science is computationally intensive science that is carried out in highly distributed network environments, or science that uses immense data sets that require grid computing; the term sometimes includes technologies that enable distributed collaboration, such as the Access Grid...

.

Task force

In 2007, the Association of Research Libraries

Association of Research Libraries

The Association of Research Libraries is an organization of the leading research libraries in North America. As of October 2006, it comprises 123 libraries at comprehensive, research-intensive institutions in the US and Canada that share similar missions, aspirations, and achievements...

 (ARL) e-Science task force

Task force

A task force is a unit or formation established to work on a single defined task or activity. Originally introduced by the United States Navy, the term has now caught on for general usage and is a standard part of NATO terminology...

 issued a report stating that e-Science requires new librarian strategies for research support and significant development of library infrastructure.
E-Science can be defined in many ways, but Tony

Tony Hey

Anthony John Grenville Hey CBE FREng FIET FInstP FBCS is a researcher and educator across a range of science and engineering fields....

 and Jessie Hey say “e-Science is not a new scientific discipline in its own right: e-Science is shorthand for the set of tools and technologies required to support collaborative, networked science.” Neil Rambo, Director of University of Washington Health Sciences Library, writes in his article e-Science and the Biomedical Library, that e-Science is “a new research methodology, fueled by networked capabilities and the practical possibility of gathering and storing vast amounts of data.”

Roles

Many areas of science are about to be transformed by the availability of vast amounts of new scientific data that can potentially provide insights at a level of detail never before envisaged. However, this new data dominant era brings new challenges for the scientists and they will need the skills and technologies both of computer scientists and of the library community to manage, search and curate these new data resources. Libraries will not be immune from change in this new world of research.
-Tony and Jessie Hey

Karen Williams identifies roles in the following areas for librarians in the developing world of e-Science.

• Campus Engagement
• Content/Collection Development and Management
• Teaching and Learning
• Scholarly Communication
• E-Scholarship and Digital Tools
• Reference/Help Services
• Outreach
• Fund Raising
• Exhibit and Event Planning
• Leadership

Challenges for Research Libraries

E-science tends toward inter- and multidisciplinary approaches that depend on computation

Computation

Computation is defined as any type of calculation. Also defined as use of computer technology in Information processing.Computation is a process following a well-defined model understood and expressed in an algorithm, protocol, network topology, etc...

 and computer science

Computer science

Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...

. Research libraries

Research library

A research library is a library which contains an in-depth collection of material on one or several subjects . A research library will generally include primary sources as well as secondary sources...

 have traditionally been discipline focused and, although increasingly technologically sophisticated, do not have systems of the scale or complexity of the e-science environment. E-science is data intensive, but research libraries have not typically been responsible for scientific data. E-science is frequently conducted in a team context, often distributed across multiple institutions and on a global scale. The primary constituency of libraries generally comprises those affiliated with the local institution. Licenses for electronic content are typically restricted to a particular institutional community, and the infrastructure to move institutional licenses into a multi-institutional environment is not well developed. E-science challenges all these traditional paradigms of research library organization and services.
-Neil Rambo

Skills

Garritano & Carlson have ventured into outlining the skills of librarians who support the data needs of e-Science and have identified five categories of skill sets that librarians new to this area should expect to adapt or develop when participating on such projects:

• Library and information science expertise

• Subject expertise

• Partnerships and outreach (both internal and external)

• Participating in sponsored research

• Balancing workload

An example of librarians reconfiguring traditional skills to meet the needs of e-Science is Witt & Carlson’s adapting of the traditional reference interview

Reference interview

A reference interview is a conversation between a librarian and a library user, usually at a reference desk, in which the librarian responds to the user's initial explanation of his or her information need by first attempting to clarify that need and then by directing the user to appropriate...

 into a “data interview” in order to provide effective e-Science services. This updated interview consists of ten practical queries necessary to understand the provenance and expectations for the preservation of datasets typical of e-Science that also help illustrate some of the educational tools and skills needed by a librarian new to e-Science and what he or she may be looking for when they come to interact with colleagues in a portal environment. What is the story of the data? What form and format are the data in? What is the expected lifespan of the dataset? How could the data be used, reused, and repurposed? How large is the dataset, and what is its rate of growth? Who are the potential audiences for the data? Who owns the data? Does the dataset include any sensitive information? What publications or discoveries have resulted from the data? How should the data be made accessible?

Resources

The Lamar Soutter Library at the University of Massachusetts Medical School

University of Massachusetts Medical School

The University of Massachusetts Medical School is one of five campuses of the University of Massachusetts system and is home to three schools: the School of Medicine, the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, the Graduate School of Nursing; a biomedical research enterprise; and a range of...

 and the Northeast Regional Medical library NN/LM have developed an e-Science web portal

Web portal

A web portal or links page is a web site that functions as a point of access to information in the World Wide Web. A portal presents information from diverse sources in a unified way....

 for librarians. This portal includes educational resources for specific tools and subject/discipline tutorial

Tutorial

A tutorial is one method of transferring knowledge and may be used as a part of a learning process. More interactive and specific than a book or a lecture; a tutorial seeks to teach by example and supply the information to complete a certain task....

s and module

Module

Module or modular may refer to the concept of modularity. It may also refer to:-Computing and engineering:* Modular design, the engineering discipline of designing complex devices using separately designed sub-components...

s to assist librarians new to e-Science. It is available at: http://esciencelibrary.umassmed.edu/escience