A Study of Faculty Data Curation Behaviors and Attitudes at a Teaching-Centered University

Academic libraries need reliable information on researcher data needs, data curation practices, and attitudes to identify and craft appropriate services that support outreach and teaching. This paper describes information gathered from a survey distributed to the College of Science and Mathematics faculty at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly), a master’s-granting, teaching-centered institution. There was a more than 60 percent response rate to the survey. The survey results provided insight into the science researchers’ data curation awareness, behaviors, and attitudes, as well as what needs they exhibited for services and education regarding maintenance and management of data. It is important that professional librarians understand what researchers both inside and outside their own institutions know so that they can collaborate with their university colleagues to examine data curation needs.