Objective: this poster illustrates a sabbatical project conducted from August-December, 2014, intended to identify the data needs of the Colby science faculty and to determine how the Colby Libraries might be able to meet those needs.

Methods: An environmental scan was undertaken by the sciences librarian to identify data practices of Colby College faculty in the sciences and environmental studies.There were three primary questions: What data are they producing? What are they doing with their data? What needs do they have that new library services can meet? Interviews were conducted with 25 faculty and five administrative staff from IT and the grants office. A spreadsheet was created of faculty publications from 2011-2014 (since the NSF DMP mandate), and what granting agencies faculty operated under as identified in each publication. From this spreadsheet, faculty were prioritized for interviews and then contacted for scheduling. Prior to each interview, faculty were sent a link to the newly revised LibGuide (Data Management and Archiving) and a list of interview questions.

Results: Faculty expressed a broad array of concerns, challenges, and needs regarding their research data as well as the process of conducting research at Colby. Faculty concerns and misconceptions were discovered that touch upon services throughout the College. Two pilot programs have been initiated as a result of the interviews: a series of one-minute tutorials for student research assistants, and librarian embedding in a data management/curation project with an interdisciplinary group of faculty on a multi-year Maine lakes study. Several additional data projects have been referred to our Digital & Special Collections staff for ingestion into our Digital Commons repository.

Conclusion: Small liberal arts colleges such as Colby cannot afford the luxury of data management teams such as those being formed at larger or better staffed institutions. However, we can still contribute to our college's data management support. Before launching any new service, it is enlightening to interview individual faculty about their work. Librarians may discover surprising and unexpected areas for assistance and collaboration. Discussions with faculty colleagues about their research needs (especially regarding data) help faculty to see librarians in a different light and allow the library to strategically choose how to move services ahead into new areas.