# Week 1 - Course Overview {-}
I am so happy to have you all here in this class!! The first week is devoted to introducing ourselves to one another, explaining more fully the course topics and expectations, as well as the structure, policies, and my teaching philosophy.
Each week, the course will have:
+ Some readings, usually 3-5 of them in total
+ A (usually 1 hour long) live, virtual discussion of those readings where one of you will moderate
- The moderator is responsible for coming up with 3-6 questions about the readings for that week for the class discussion, and leading the discussion.
+ A video lecture from me, that also will be written out
+ A hands-on, ungraded lab to help you bolster different skills (where applicable)
+ A homework assignment (usually around 8)
**This week**, you all should:
+ Read [the syllabus](syllabus.html)
+ Get to know me [below](week-1-course-overview.html#introducing-me)
+ Read the articles for this week before our live discussion on Thursday, September 2nd at 6:30 - 7:30pm Eastern
+ Come to our live discussion ready to meet each other and discuss the readings - I will moderate our first discussion.
+ Tell me which weeks you want to moderate in the discussion moderation survey
+ Complete your self-assessment survey (ungraded, just to help me understand the best pace for the course)
+ Read over the [final project overview](syllabus.html#expected-work-graded) and begin to think about a potential topic
## Introducing me {-}
Hello all! Welcome to Data Librarianship and Management! I'm Vicky Rampin, the instructor for this course and Visiting Assistant Professor here at Pratt. Full-time I work as the Librarian for Research Data Management and Reproducibility at New York University, putting what I teach in this course into practice. My pronouns are she/her/hers or they/them/theirs.
I wanted to give you some background about my professional journey, since it is a bit unique, and so you would just know more about me and where I'm coming from! I was the first student to go through an accelerated program to get a MLIS at Simmons College, now Simmons University. This program was called the 3+1 program, and it let me get Bachelor degrees in computer science and information technology in 3 years, and a MLIS in 1 year.
After that, I was a part of the National Digital Stewardship Residency program from 2014-2015, which was like a post-MLIS fellowship where new grads were paired with institutions that needed some help with digital preservation work. I was at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and it was seriously awesome. I mean I got to walk to work to the library on the 4th floor passing fossils. It was so rad. And it was also what got me into data librarianship! My project at the AMNH was to basically do an internal environmental scan about the extent and status of their research materials, and what the museum would need to be able to preserve those research materials. So during my nine month residency I interviewed every single curator and some of the scientific staff in the Museum to get a feel for their research code and data needs. Based on those interviews, I made recommendations about library services and infrastructure needed to preserve their current and future research materials. Here's me with a fish that can literally move it's fins up and down to climb up waterfalls in the Andes:
I got to see it when interviewing a curator in ichthyology, the study of fish. I had never been exposed to research data or code before this, also; I got a real crash course. I saw a whole range of research materials from disciplines from anthropology, to astrophysics, to geology. It was awesome because I ended up really loving the challenge of adapting practices to different research workflows and the newness of the field.
It was kinda great how after my NDSR ended, I saw the job ad for my current position at NYU in 2015. For the first 4 years I was at NYU, I was a dual appointment between NYU's Division of Libraries and the Center for Data Science. I literally spent half my time in one place and half in the other, being an embedded data librarian, which was another really awesome unique experience. At NYU, I support students, faculty, staff, and researchers in creating well-managed, high quality, and reproducible research. I do that through the more typical librarian methods, like teaching workshops and embedded sessions, and consultations and reference desk time, and also through more atypical activities, like infrastructure building and working on software projects. I also conduct research, which centers on integrating reproducible practices into the research workflow, advocating openness in all facets of research, and software preservation. I believe 100% that research should be open as possible, closed when necessary only, and that includes code, data, documentation, workflows, the whole kit and kaboodle.
Some other stuff I do professionally -- I am also the co-founder of the LIS Scholarship Archive. LISSA is an open repository for library and information science scholarship, and all of your work would be welcome there whenever you want to share it. I also have done things like co-organized a virtual conference last January called "[Librarians Building Momentum for Reproducibility](https://vickysteeves.gitlab.io/librarians-reproducibility/)" as a way to provide a no-cost event for librarians to discuss supporting reproducibility. If you're interested in learning more about my background, ethics, interests, I chatted with Thomas Padilla about it here: https://acrl.ala.org/dh/2018/04/04/repro/.
### Teaching Philosophy {-}
Ok, so in terms of my style of teaching, I believe in balancing knowledge of best practices and theory with hands-on exercises to amplify understanding and build skill-sets. You will have some readings to do every week to give you different points of view on the topic of discussion, and then we'll discuss these as a class in our weekly meeting. I usually like to spend the last half of the class doing a lab when this class was taught in-person, and have tried to also include those hands-on labs virtually where I thought it would be possible. If you are having trouble with any of the hands-on work, feel free to email me. For graded assignments that have a hands-on component, there will be a reading/writing options for those students who are unable to complete the hands-on option for whatever reason. So each week we'll have some readings, some discussion, a hands-on exercise where applicable, and then a homework that builds on everything done in-class. I do this because so much of data librarianship relies on some knowledge of hands-on skills, and I want to provide each of you a place to try out those skills, dip your toes in the water so-to-speak.
I also like to mention up front that you should all just call me Vicky, and mention that I am not a doctor because I usually get people calling me Dr. Rampin a few times. I believe in treating my students the same as my colleagues, because you are and you will continue to be my colleagues after graduation. I want to collaborate with all of you on building a community within the classroom and in the field. I am a laid-back person and will generally try to work with you to make your participation in this course work. For instance, I generally don't care about granting extensions, as long as the assignment gets in at some point (and, you know, depending on how late it is, you don't mind not getting feedback). I want this virtual classroom to be a chill place for growing together and discussing the issues and landscape of data librarianship together. I am really psyched to learn with you all!
### Meet Little Boss! {-}
A side note! This is your co-instructor, Little Boss (LB for short). He appears in all my teaching materials because he is very cute, as you'll see. You'll see him every week -- here's one to start off with, LB reading the Communications of the ACM:
