Collaborative Training in Statistical and Data Library Services: Lessons from the Canadian Data Liberation Initiative.

ABSTRACT New technology and knowledge push organizations to upgrade and improve the skills of their staff. Paying for professional develop programming is a common way of providing continuing education. This article describes a collaborative training program introduced to develop baseline competencies in Canadian academic libraries to support data services. In conjunction with an initiative between Statistics Canada and sixty-six Canadian universities, a data literacy program has delivered thirty workshops over a seven-year period training librarians how to provide services for statistics and data. A cost-sharing arrangement keeps these training expenses to a minimum for individual universities.