Partner Spotlight: Christine Nieman

Posted by Peace on November 1st, 2022 Posted in: spotlights
Tags: about us, partner spotlight, region 1

---

The work done by NCDS is highly collaborative, and many teams, individuals, and organizations contribute to the offerings that come from the center. In an effort to support the aims to build a data-informed workforce that can accelerate discovery & advance health by providing the tools for data driven research, the most central collaboration occurs internally with the other NNLM Regional Medical Libraries (RMLs), Offices, and Centers. We will occasionally highlight our partners doing this work in the effort toward providing insight into the inner workings of these initiatives and celebrating our partners as our accomplishments would not occur without their assistance or partnership on some efforts, leadership on others, and everything in between.

Our first partner spotlight is Christine Nieman who is the Data Management Librarian for Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM) Region 1 office, located in the Health Sciences and Human Services Library at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

 

An Interview with Christine Nieman

Can you describe your role?

In the role at the NNLM Region 1 Data Management Librarian, I support data management and data literacy instruction and programs, such as the NNLM class on the Fundamentals of Health Science Research Data Management and the RDM On Demand modules.

 

What excites you about supporting data literacy?

Data underlies so many of our decisions, both consciously and unconsciously. Data literacy is an extension of information literacy and being able to find, assess, and communicate about data impacts what we know, believe, and can discover. What discoveries are made, what research is funded, what programs and policies succeed – it all comes back to data (for better or worse). Being able to work with and interpret data requires practice and time, and I’m excited to provide opportunities to share what I know and learn from others about data.

 

What are some recent/current projects you’d like to share?

Recently, I collaborated with colleagues across NNLM to present about data tools to use for open and reproducible science at the Southeast Data Librarian Symposium (SEDLS) and the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of MLA. I will be hosting Region 1’s Fall Library Carpentry workshop on November 2nd-3rd, and I’ll be supporting Region 5’s Library Carpentry in December. I also lead a taskforce aiming to coordinate the NNLM’s Library Carpentry activities, and we are hoping to host more workshops in the next year – watch this space!

 

How do you collaborate with the NCDS, and what are future collaboration plans?

I collaborated with NCDS and the National Training Office on creating a data curriculum map; we matched the classes we currently offer to our objectives for this year and throughout the cooperative agreement. The next step is to determine what classes we want to develop and teach in the coming months and into 2023. I am also looking forward to collaborating with NCDS on teaching these new classes.

 

What are you looking forward to?

I’m excited about a mini-course we are planning on accessible and inclusive data. Accessibility and providing universal access to data is important to me. I’m also looking forward to Love Data Week – it may seem awhile down the line, but I’ve begun planning with some folks at NCBI to put together a panel discussion/webinar on codeathons.

Do you have any other things you’d like to share?

Before I started my position at the NNLM, I took a road trip from Cincinnati to Chicago to Niagara Falls – in December and January. If you’ve never seen Niagara Falls in winter, I definitely recommend it! The snow is beautiful but definitely layer up!