Sarah Burchart and Eszter Palvolgyi-Polyak

00:05 My name is Esther. I'm 27 years old and today is May 20th 2020.

00:12 I need the phone. They're full of Ann Arbor and I'm doing the recording with Sarah my colleague.

00:21 At the icpsr

00:24 My name is Sarah. I'm 28 years old. This is May 21st, 2020. I am working remotely from Novi Michigan right now. I'm recording with my coworker after my coworker for a little over a year now at icpsr.

00:50 Why don't we get started by Esther?

00:55 Can you tell me what your path was as far as finding like a job at icpsr in working here what your background kind of was before?

01:06 Working here and what led you to join the bibliography team?

01:12 Okay, so I come from grief are both in terms of geography and field of interest because I came here more than one and a half years ago you Ann Arbor with my husband who is starting to get the University of Michigan. And first I didn't really know much about their whole university and not even about isra. I heard about it because there are a lot of hungry and professors also working. That was my only information about the whole place. But then as I was sneaking out for opportunities to work on campus, I I found a really interesting research assistant posting through

02:07 The department of economics and I definitely interested in that because even though my my bad if your home is in Moore Humanities in Chinese studies East Asian studies and a little bit of international relations. I was always really interested in more quantitative stop in data. So I thought that it would be a really cool opportunity for me to be able to see how people very good data and to see how does quantitative part of social science works. So I was really lucky to get this opportunity to work as a research assistant first in the people on your friends later on I I have stopped it out permanent position. So it was a great story so far and I'm really happy to be here right now, and I know that you joined a little

03:06 A little more than a year earlier than me. Yeah. And what kind of was in 2017 I finished my master's degree in library and information science at the time. I was working two jobs at an academic library and a public library. I was kind of looking for a full-time position somewhere. And so I came across this posting at the University of Michigan looking for someone with a library background. I kind of like saw that it was part of this institute for social research, but I didn't have any familiarity with icpsr and in general and I think like you Esther most of my background was in the social sciences and like kind of humanity will not the social sciences more the humanities and

04:06 I really did not have a heavy background with data other than maybe taking a few classes that touched on technology and database management for my Master's Degree. But I saw this posting saying they wanted someone with a library background to help with organizing and connecting academic literature and searching databases. And I thought it was a good match with my skill-set. So I applied for the position and started and it's it definitely took a while to get used to what exactly on my work was doing within kind of the broader scope of this whole organization, but

04:51 But it definitely over time became much clearer to me like where I was in the research data lifecycle. So maybe we could also been transition to Baby how you felt when you kind of were first on the job. What kind of was familiar to you? And then what was all so what's up you had to learn right away. What kind of

05:19 Still Kerber learning curve there was

05:23 It's just a great truck for the first time single down things that I had to accomplish in a relatively short time since I I'm at my former colleague Noah on my first day and be like two days to

05:48 Naruto me what's my tax will be and how I'm going to take over from him and say this is really a lot of information to put ya on the first and everything that we had to learn about. So it was a pretty stressful in the first couple of weeks with you.

06:22 I really felt over around with all these things and I also it also took me some time to figure out we are situated in the whole data lifecycle and also because they are upgrading small department or a couple of

06:49 Presentations about hostile Fire and Ice BSR and the whole organization to actually know where we are. And what are we doing? And how are we impacting the addition and our users? So it was really also really?

07:12 I was really glad that I have an impact on the huge variety of studies by searching for these studies mostly about aging but also about all topics in HIV and substance abuse and and really a great variety of studies ants and beetles. It's a really long time to family rise it older idiosyncrasies and everything. So

07:49 This is not how I felt but now I feel much more confident about all these things all these studies and I know that you are mostly focusing on the topic. Yeah. Yeah, and you have a CPS are managers of all the kind of sub archives and and doing work for the funders for that. And so that definitely took a while to get used to it as someone with no criminal justice or criminology background there were definitely it was a few weeks into my job of where I was definitely in this kind of floating feeling of like am I doing this, right? And at the time you weren't around Esther and we didn't have anyone a part-time on the bibliography teen just yet. It was just me and Elizabeth. So they

08:49 Definitely kind of a feeling of like

08:53 Like waiting to hear from Elizabeth and hoping that I was doing it right and not just kind of

08:59 Waiting in the learning that I had completely misunderstood, but but it as things went on. I am definitely it's definitely a good application of of Library work. It's just not necessarily in the conventional way. Some people might think of it. It's not it's not okay. You're like looking at a physical bookshelf, for example, or things like that instead. It's more looking at a journal article. For example, knowing that we have this data set that we archive and we're trying to find. Okay. Where is the stator we archive where is it being used? And there's sometimes

09:46 The ideal is that you have a really easy way to find it at the authors of these Journal articles of these books. These academic books are just going to be saying okay. Yep. Our data source. Is this data set for my CPS? Are we have the DOI and everything and that would make it really easy and it would probably be really easy to also create a tool that could automate that and make our job much more streamlines. But unfortunately, it's a lot messier than that most of the time sometimes people say in the methodology section. Okay, we use this data from icpsr, but they don't really have the exact title right or they don't mention icpsr but they just kind of mention okay from uniform crime reports and you kind of have to make the next couple steps in triangulation deciding that. Okay, this is

10:46 This is the data that they're using which is icpsr data, even if they don't mention us, sometimes it's really obscure. Sometimes they don't even mention like this title or anything at all, but just say this was a survey of x amount of students in the Southeast about this subject on school safety and I'm having the kind of think. Okay looking at this article. What studies do we have on school Crime & Safety and kind of look and try to figure out is there.

11:19 Looking at the metadata we have is there any connection between this data and these Journal articles and it makes its makes your job very interesting. Sometimes it's kind of like being a a kind of detective on kind of bow hunt or more Publications to link to date so that people can understand the date on how it's being used and how it's being researched.

11:49 I can relate to this detective because yeah, it's really feel like you have a piece of information and you go out to the wild to Waterford databases. For example, if you do a lot of freaking Google Scholar and you try to figure out what is the best way what is the best cure for your study and

12:18 Even if you figure out something really dude, sometimes you put in for a ride because yeah because researchers are not really accustomed to signing they really Val because this is a really needed me. So when you were studying Library science and information Science teaching you encountered a start of a Mark or did you ever think about citation in a way that they think about it right now? It's icpsr and how is makes our life a little harder about data citation specifically, but I did just kind of in the order of looking at sighting unusual objects in general that came across pretty quickly.

13:13 The question would come up a lot of like okay, if I'm talking in this paper about like a social media post or I'm talking about a YouTube video and fighting in this academic paper how the heck do we cite that and how do those standards work? And and we kind of relied on the American Psychological APA style to guide us in that but even I was finding that that was just every ball thing. It's kind of like you would rely on these these University websites were trying to keep up with things as fast as they can. But but as soon as you come up with one citations out, then like another form of Internet media has kind of popped up and you have to decide. Okay. What's the best way to academic fight this and and you kind of come across that a little bit with icpsr where?

14:12 I have found liked YouTube videos. Usually they're like videos of conference proceedings or something that are talking about the data. So we put it in the bibliography and and it's exciting to find that kind of stuff because there's I hope that those mediums or more accessible to people who might not be super familiar with data analysis, but it might kind of give them an insight into what data can be used for how it can be visualized and and it would be really nice to be able to see research become more accessible in that way. And that's really the hope I think up the graffiti in general is that you don't have to be like a super expert and statistical analysis or anything the bibliography really gives

15:12 Are researchers and students are starting point to see okay. This is how the data has been used so far. So this is kind of where you can possibly go and where you might be able to possibly expand on it.

15:29 I I think I see a person really a lot to accomplish these goals. And also I name that they've seen a lot of great ideas around this around accessibility around. How do you say. How do you educate people on that? Especially beginners and mostly and I I really enjoyed seeing those little videos pop on our YouTube channel, which I know I can really nice and colorful representation. It's cooler than it usually is.

16:11 And then when you work at it on a daily basis, but yeah, so I really enjoy how people can approach these topics and this really are not really. I didn't things and that's what I really like about ice PSR on the hole that

16:34 You know, there's just so much crazy busy going into the work and if you think about all the campaigns that's very offer example to La Plata Peak adopt and yeah, he's the ultimate interesting place apart from Old El really exciting data that we are holding.

17:18 So you have a really happy I spent our memory that you would want to share. I do like a lot of the of the get-together events kind of be social events that they put on throughout the year that will hopefully be able to return to before the end of it. But just it is it's fun to have those events where it's like whether it's like, you know Valentine's Day or you know punch need a social or things like that or the holiday parties. It's enjoyable to get to see people that I don't normally interact with day today since I think both of us are kind of working at our computers inside these cubicles for most of the day, so it doesn't lend itself to talking with people who are like Siri.

18:18 Getting the data or things like that. I just I really it makes me happy to go and

18:25 Talk with other people in a more casual setting and figure out what what they're doing and it gives me a better sense of how my my work is connected to there's a lot you don't always get to see me day today.

18:42 Yeah, that's yeah, that's really important because that's how it says contextualize what we are doing. I really I really feel that I need this from time to time because otherwise, yeah, it's

18:56 Yeah, it's hard to see and I was in fact that you but I think that's true for all parts of the organization that everybody needs to get to know. The other reason is because otherwise it's really hard to capture the whole data lifecycle and how these processes interact because there's so much going on. And yeah and

19:18 And you know, I was really glad to.

19:22 Be able so only my first year because it's a biannual things.

19:29 The biennial meeting which is a really cool conference. It's just so excited to meet those people who actually are. I could say awkward spaces are cities that are actually using the data on the whole.

20:15 This just brings up in a music memory from you where I last year when I went to the American Library Association conference where I worked if I used the full name of the organization like the interior University Consortium for political and social research people did not know what that was. But if I said I worked at icpsr I would have understanding that it would be like, so yeah, I know what that is. Yeah University Library where part of

20:49 The organizations that belongs to that so I just found that amusing that I guess acronym seem to take up so much of the kind of thematic.

21:01 Acronyms are a theme of the organization. I still don't know all the acronyms. I don't think I don't know if anyone.

21:12 It's like so many projects and archives and yeah, and even sometimes even though our guys that I work with. Its I know they are sending but I have a hard time recalling the whole me how do I spell the letters out for this one or do I say it? Like, it's a word you have your Knack JD's which is kind of both. I guess.. Nuvve icpsr rear spelling it out.

21:53 These are just some of the silly things you think about one of my favorite archives Magda which I spend quite some time with.

22:14 I'm sorry lyrics one, right?

22:17 And no that's not. I'm sorry almost the national archives for computers. They down the Aging you're right, and and I really

22:38 I just say that for the first couple of moms and initially that's supposed to archived that I was most excited about and because so there's all sorts of a longitudinal data on aging and how and how they think a packed house and how this is really a huge if it really has a huge impact on researchers and the thing that they are able to access secondary data for we use really easily and say so they told a lot about cognitions like to see those data and also dementia disease really really important issues that impact more and more people all over the vert and also how they hold they talked about really

23:36 Diverse populations because they do not only have longitudinal data on the u.s. Population by the European countries. And also I'm pretty simple. I really enjoyed reading the publication's on a Chinese longitudinal study of yeah, that's not the correct name actually, but it's it's like one of the greatest studies on that end and they have really fascinating Publications very simple and how aging so that's really great to every day. And yeah, that's something that I really like about a virgin get ice BSR.

24:30 So I'm both impossible, but also really interesting.

24:38 Yeah, I said it said yeah, and I I think

24:45 What's also makes it special for me that I I always got a really great feedback from the project manager for both of us. They are on the main.

25:02 Person who represents the archives and what do you how do you want this relationship with your archives project managers or how do you find Burkina Faso? Most of my interaction with my project managers is by and large giving the monthly reports telling them. Okay. These are the studies. I've kind of done searches for for Publications, but I've also gotten some encouraging feedback as far as

25:34 Really? I've been throwing some ideas at them lately as far as promoting finding ways to promote the bibliography and Publications connected to data science through social media and and kind of outside just searching for Publications. Like right now. I'm hoping to get an article on the next rabie website soon that kind of highlight some of our studies about technology and you in relation to two prisons in relation to teams just in general because it's a topical thing where everyone's using technology more away that I would like to Penny use my my library and background a little more in my work is a whereas in a pub.

26:34 Library, or even an academic Library you might set up a display of like, okay, here's some Topic in the news that's happening or some important individual here is some books about that subject that I'm going to highlight out there that people can find more information.

26:53 I'm I guess I kind of been brainstorming ways to do that, but with our data sets and the Publications connected to them and so that's been something that's been on my mind that at least so far all about it.

27:13 Yeah, I'm I'm looking forward to reading your articles. I didn't know that you got the idea from Halo. It's usually like information. How is how is it distributed in libraries? But it's really interesting because yeah everytime I go to that for example the public library here. There's something about what is going on around the city or I think that's a good idea really to use icpsr Stepside as I know Public Library would use it. It's great to

27:51 To see how our different backgrounds affect how we approached. I really am looking into learning more about girls like taking a researchers perspective and learn more about why people have a hard time while you was there just have a hard time deciding about that little Sorrel interesting topic across the organization. Who are you calling Steven who are really interested in collaborating on that. So I'm I'm hoping for. That's a really good thing about ice PSR that you get to work.

28:34 Big people from other departments who also are really contributing different perspectives. And yeah, and also, I really enjoyed hearing about other people's research when we had this lunch and learn things and and you know, some even some people presented their PHD research scientist of a kind of the idea of what

29:14 Like University or Academia should be in a sense it definitely me a sense that even in my work. I'm continuing and lifelong learning and I'm really grateful for that.

29:28 It doesn't have as much of the pressure as maybe my undergrad and graduate college life did where I ended up grabbing a little closer to the new lifelong learning.

29:49 Damn, it's it's great to see that people who've been here. For more than 20 years. They are I'm grateful that we don't have to worry about some of the older methods of looking up people saving data pre-computer free internet because I cannot imagine not being able to control a sin find keywords in a thesis or in a journal article. That would be cool.

30:28 Was Ali also had some you know, you remember when we were cleaning out the whole like 20 years of the library because this is his friend and they were cleaning out dog Seresto paper-based up dishes, but the kids fever moving things around a little bit more people used to submit Publications do icpsr to mail and their cover letters and how they had these record cards for data really interesting to leave, really wrong way in the past 20 years because playing for CD-ROMs and yeah, so yeah, but we can of course.

31:28 Ask Elizabeth who I named is also really grateful for having this new technology to do because she was there from the beginning and yeah, and I I think it's a lot more opportunities right now.

31:51 And right now it's a lot of working around what technology is available and kind of adapting it to the work we need to do where it's still kind of feels like if you're trying to explain to someone why you can't just have Google Scholar bring back every obscure mention of a data set for you. Hey, you have to kind of construct a search query and figure out if it's wide enough for narrow and offer what you have to edit with it. It's not an automatic process, even though you might assume it and it's kind of cool to think that our work your might eventually be used to help kind of make it a more automatic process. It would it would definitely be interesting to see where will be in like 20 years as far as what people in our position might be doing the same or differently.

32:50 I'm pretty sure that there will be a huge leap in from self development in ice BSR. I think that's also really like how icpsr drives Innovation. That's also really amazing to see and I really hope that we can learn a lot from that to even though we are not still exact style purse.

33:28 So, I don't know whether I wanted to what I want you to ask. Yeah.

33:39 Do you have a

33:42 What do you think? Are we going to get back by July? I feel fortunate that the work we're doing is it was pretty easy to adapt to working from home since it's already all computer-based to begin with.

34:07 So I was born there like and we'll see what happens. It's definitely not the same trying to learn what people are are doing with the research data from home.

34:22 Oh, yeah. Yeah, and I think I also yeah, I miss the interactions that I really also like personally, but also professional you just sold two people on here about new things and if you ideas that's that's really

34:43 That would be great to resume as soon as possible.

34:55 I'm trying to think of like a good last question for us.

35:09 So if you are if you kind of taken one big thing away from your work here as far as like how it impacts your interests or your work ethic, what would that be?

35:27 I act so the major thing is starting to lie.

35:33 Impact of data on people's life

35:38 Because as I read a lot as I hear a lot about how people who are always improving data using access making invites on the bird. It's really like on even on that really practical ways. I can really appreciate that. And also I

36:02 I'm getting more interest. And also I really hope that expertise about how to actually use dado El and how to use it as a so that's that's a really important take away because yeah good face. A lot of guys always choose to

36:22 Yes, I really hope that I can I can learn more about that and take that away. And do you have anything like that for yourself? It really has.

36:38 Stayed with me that with this position data is not just some really like high and mighty like mathematical Concepts. That would just be beyond. My understanding is someone who has never really been a math. Whiz it's really it's really just the collection of of what makes up the Human Experience in a lot of ways and just finding ways to put that together in a collection and

37:15 And find ways to measure it and look at it ways that can make sense. So if you take that approach that way it doesn't have to feel like it's just number crunching and some

37:30 It can be really useful for understanding Human Experience.

37:38 Abyssal plain

37:42 Thank you.

37:44 It was great to talk to you about this. I hope this weekend going with this.