Research data management services in Southern Africa: a readiness survey of academic and research libraries

Abstract

The paper reports on a study on the readiness of university and research libraries in Southern Africa to provide research data management services in their institutions. The aim of the study was to determine how ready university and research libraries are in leading and participating in research data management services. The study also determined the readiness of libraries to engage in stakeholder collaborative programmes to provide institutionwide services and systems for research data management. Various aspects relating to research data management services readiness that were included in the study are: data support services, archiving, organisational structures, staffing and training, funding, outreach and partnerships, and challenges and opportunities of research data management service provision. A questionnaire was distributed to fifty-nine university librarians and library directors in university and research libraries in eight southern Africa countries of Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The results show that research data management services are still in their early stages of development with various countries and institutions at different levels of readiness for service provision and with some countries and institutions not yet ready to implement any type of services. A small number of institutions have policies in place or are planning to implement some in the near future. Existing institutional repositories are also seen as a possible extension of data management services. Recruitment of specialised personnel to manage data management projects is taking place in some institutions, and many are providing skills to existing library staff for the new services. It is recommended that there is a need to advocate for awareness of research data management within institutions with academic and research libraries taking a leading role in spearheading data management and providing training and the technical support needed to store and retrieve research output and data sets.