Send It Away, or Put It On Display? How librarians and research computing staff can collaborate across language barriers

The data services landscape continues to change rapidly. From shifting cloud file storage platform quotas, to rising storage costs, to increasing focus on multi-disciplinary projects, rapid changes warrant an evolving collaborative approach toward data services. Data librarians and research computing professionals in this context are increasingly becoming “boundary-spanners,” a term we invoke to articulate the role data librarians and data professionals play in exploring collaborations across disciplines while managing uncertainty, change, and communication disconnects in data services. In line with a long-standing dilemma, concepts and ideas defined in one domain do not always find parity when also defined within the context and value system of a different discipline. Although semantic ambiguities in the data services arena present challenges, their presence suggests an opportunity to reflect. How do we begin collaborations across silos? How do we avoid the pitfalls of cross-disciplinary collaborations? This article will explore terminology and services differentiation in libraries and research computing organizations. To illustrate different perspectives, value systems, and language, we will highlight divergent uses of common terms such as metadata, storage and backup, sharing, and archiving, then outline some implications for collaborative conversations. Throughout, we will share ideas for building research computing and library partnerships, from conversation starters to shared initiatives to shared funding proposals. The goal of this piece is to bring together a set of practical collaboration ideas and strategies to use in meetings with data services stakeholders, with an aim to help transform operational differences into understanding.