Competencies and Responsibilities of Social Science Data Librarians: An Analysis of Job Descriptions

This study examines job announcements for social science data librarians and professionals to identify trends in the profession. A collection of 167 job postings in 2005–2012 from the International Association for Social Science Information Services &Technology website was analyzed on the frequencies of term occurrence and co-occurrence in job qualifications and responsibilities. The study verifies that employers valued non-technical skills as heavily as technical skills, and detects dissimilar emphases of data activities for data librarians and non-librarian professionals: the former on data discovery and collection, and the latter on data analysis and preservation. An increasing requirement of data management planning was also found for data librarians.