Donald Waters
Senior Scholar
Coalition for Networked Information
A draft of Waters’ project report, “Meeting the Climate Emergency: University Information Infrastructure for Researching Wicked Problems,” is available online for review and comment. The session will provide an open forum to discuss the draft report and provide the author comments and suggestions as he prepares to submit the final version in early February.
The report suggests how research libraries, campus computing organizations, and other information experts could help accelerate research to address the growing climate emergency. It begins with a definition of climate change as a complex, “wicked” problem, that requires attention from a broad range of academic and public perspectives. The report goes on to outline how universities are sponsoring specialized climate centers and institutes to bring together researchers from these various perspectives. It then recommends that research librarians and other information specialists adjust their service strategies to focus on these centers and institutes. They should especially consider supporting the information needs of climate researchers in ways that would (a) broaden the disciplinary range, (b) deepen the public engagement, and (c) extend the data analysis capabilities of these centers and institutes.
