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Academic librarians at play in the field of cheminformatics: building the case for chemistry research data management

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Abstract

There are compelling needs from a variety of camps for more chemistry data to be available. While there are funder and government mandates for depositing research data in the United States and Europe, this does not mean it will be done well or expediently. Chemists themselves do not appear overly engaged at this stage and chemistry librarians who work directly with chemists and their local information environments are interested in helping with this challenge. Our unique understanding of organizing data and information enables us to contribute to building necessary infrastructure and establishing standards and best practices across the full research data cycle. As not many support structures focused on chemistry currently exist, we are initiating explorations through a few case studies and focused pilot projects presented here, with an aim of identifying opportunities for increased collaboration among chemists, chemistry librarians, cheminformaticians and other chemistry professionals.

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Notes

  1. The sub-disciplines and faculty members working on these sub-disciplines at the Department of Chemistry, University of Michigan are listed on http://www.lsa.umich.edu/chem/people/faculty/facultybyresearchcluster (Accessed April 2014).

  2. The faculty members and their self-reported research themes at the Department of Chemistry, University of Michigan are listed on http://www.lsa.umich.edu/chem/people/faculty/facultybyresearchthemes (Accessed April 2014).

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank colleagues at several institutions including the Cornell University and University of Michigan Libraries and Departments of Chemistry respectively, the American Chemical Society, and the Royal Society of Chemistry; particularly Ralph Stuart in the Environmental Health and Safety Department at Cornell University for collaborating on the iRAMP project; and Dr. Kazuhiro Saitou, Dr. Gus Rosania, and Dr. Jungkap Park at the University of Michigan for the collaboration opportunity on the ChemReader project.

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  1. Physical Sciences Library, Cornell University, 283 Clark Hall, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

    Leah McEwen

  2. Shapiro Science Library, University of Michigan, 919 South University Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA

    Ye Li

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  1. Leah McEwen
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Correspondence to Leah McEwen.

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McEwen, L., Li, Y. Academic librarians at play in the field of cheminformatics: building the case for chemistry research data management. J Comput Aided Mol Des 28, 975–988 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10822-014-9777-4

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