‘Research Libraries as Data Hubs’ – Challenges and Opportunities

The project “Research Libraries as Data Hubs” has been initiated by the Swiss Science Council SSC within its Working Programme for the years 2024–2027. Academic libraries play a key role in knowledge production and are essential for the competitiveness of Higher Education Institutions. At the same time, they face major challenges due to current technological developments, changes in research, and scarcity of funding resources. Against this background, the SSC aims at contributing to secure and improve the services of Swiss research libraries and their framework conditions in the context of the digital transformation.

In order to present preliminary findings and put them up for discussion, on 4 April the SSC organised an event at the University of Bern . It was attended by around 50 stakeholders of academic libraries, service providers, repositories, and other organisations in the field of Education, Research and Innovation. SSC president Sabine Süsstrunk opened the event with a welcome address. Subsequently, the Council member and Working Group leader Susanna Burghartz outlined the findings of around 20 interviews which the SSC conducted over the last couple of months with various experts of Swiss research libraries (many of whom were present in the audience). One of the main findings is that the services provided by libraries are essential for research but often remain “invisible”. Dominique Foray, a member of the SSC Working Group, has characterised this phenomenon as the “shadow value” of research libraries.

After a coffee break in the foyer of the University, J. Philipp Trein from the University of Lausanne provided an insight into the concept of “Multi-level governance”, an important concept for understanding the mechanism of strategic collaboration within the Swiss federal system. Ana Petrus (scivia LLC / UAS of the Grisons) then presented some “good practices from abroad”, which are based on various interviews she has conducted with stakeholders from international library organisations as well as representatives of research libraries and service providers from outside Switzerland. Preliminary findings, such as the presence of library managers on the boards of higher education institutions and the importance of bottom-up networks, were addressed.

After a question and answer session and a preview of the afternoon's programme, the lunch break offered all participants an opportunity to exchange ideas and relax.

The afternoon was dedicated to a workshop, which was moderated by Christian Varga of ImpactLinx. The aim was to identify options for action. As a first step, key issues were discussed in four break-out groups: AI and digitalisation, training and skills, data spaces with historical depth, and strategic collaboration.

The exchanges of the break-out groups were summarised and further discussed in the plenary. The possible cancellation of national project funding via swissuniversities was one of the main concerns. In this context, first ideas for alternative funding were presented. Furthermore, it was suggested to strengthen the cooperation between the Swiss Library Network for Education and Research (SLiNER) and service providers such as Switch and SLSP, in order to jointly develop strategic projects. Other areas of opportunity included modular training programmes for library staff, for example on AI.

At the end of the event, SSC president Sabine Süsstrunk and Council member Susanna Burghartz thanked the attendees for their active participation and valuable contributions. The results of the event will be taken into account in the final SSC report on “Research Libraries as Data Hubs”, which will be published by the end of the year.