Lucky Partnerships: Piloting Combined Information Literacy/Data Management Instruction for LabsLucky Partnerships: Piloting Combined Information Literacy/Data Management Instruction for LabsLucky Partnerships: Piloting Combined Information Literacy/D

Original research relies upon strong information literacy (IL) and research data management (RDM) skills. However, at Tufts University, research labs are highly specialized and often operate independently from the traditional curriculum where students interact with library instruction. The departments that host labs often also rely upon larger class sizes and exam-based curricula for core courses, making impactful IL instruction challenging. In addition, RDM is not commonly addressed in traditional classroom library instruction. To improve IL and RDM skills among lab members and to increase collaboration between the library and original researchers, we developed an outreach plan to cater to individual labs and offer customized workshops. In these workshops, we led discussions with students, faculty, and professional lab staff members to develop skills such as literature searching, collaborative citation management and note-taking, organizing data, and data workflows. These workshops improve research practices by fostering a shared vocabulary amongst lab members. This lightning talk will describe the lucky break that kick-started this project in the Psychology department, the collaboration between a liaison librarian and a research data librarian, our pilot initiative with the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, and our plans for growing the pilot into a workflow that can be adopted by other liaisons