As Northwestern’s data analysis librarian, Sarah Thorngate knows that her title may not generate an instant understanding of what she does.
“Data analysis, that’s so broad right?” Thorngate said.
It’s that broadness, though, that lets her get very specific with the needs of a researcher.
“I do some straightforward helping people get up and rolling with software, but where I really focus my attention, because I think it makes sense for a library, is in the interplay between computational text methods,” said Thorngate.
Thorngate is part of Digital Scholarship and Research Data Management, a team of librarians who integrate scholarly methodologies with technological skills. While the official title of the team is new, the work of digital scholarship has been around for years, and it has been steadily growing. Along with Thorngate’s expertise in data analysis, Digital Scholarship collaborates on a variety of research projects involving AI/ML, GIS, text analysis, data mining, and other data science techniques.
The Digital Scholarship team also holds workshops and class visits meant to introduce students to the tools and methods to perform data science, a skillset increasingly valued both in research contexts and in the general job market.
Whether it is instruction or research, however, the best work is done when they join a project early.
“In the past, we have been asked to help with one part of somebody’s research, just as one-off projects. Now, we want to be there at the beginning in more of a partnership, or a collaboration,” said Kelsey Rydland, head of Digital Scholarship and Research Data Management and an adjunct professor in McCormick School of Engineering.
Thorngate found that this early collaboration approach worked best this fall. When teaching qualitative research methods, she found that one-time class visits and free-standing workshops still left students with questions. Students responded better to active learning and having an assignment to focus their learning.
Thorngate approached Janice Mejia in the McCormick School of Engineering, interested in collaborating on teaching. Mejia shared her syllabus for the course, and Thorngate found places where her expertise could enhance the curriculum.
“She gave me her assignments and her syllabus, and I said ‘Here are the points where I think students need something I could teach them,’” Thorngate said.
She then created content that could be included in Canvas, the course management system, and joined the class in-person for active learning workshops where she made herself available to work through thorny projects and datasets. Because the students had a specific assignment to work on and more time, they retained more of the skills.
Because this model can be imported to other classes through Canvas, Thorngate feels it is scalable over time and looks forward to slowly expanding this pedagogical collaboration to other classes.
Basia Kapolka said that she wishes more faculty knew that librarians are available even at the brainstorming stages. As the Digital Humanities librarian, she can help with the practical skills of how to use digital tools, but also conceptually, tease out the interactive opportunities of digital platforms and anticipate an audience approaching a digital project.
“If faculty have the kernel of an idea, it’s likely that talking to one of our team could make it into something concrete that they haven’t thought about,” said Kapolka.
But where to start? Just reach out.
“What we’re offering is a host of technical expertise that we can lend to faculty and students. They don’t necessarily have to go and figure out who to talk to,” said Rydland. “They just know that Digital Scholarship does digital projects, and we can help them. Do I talk to Basia, or should I talk to Sarah? No, just come to us, and we’ll work with you.”