Author Kristin Briney opens The Data Management Workbook (Briney 2025a) with an anecdote about recent scientific misconduct. Jonathan Pruitt, formerly of McMaster University, falsified data for dozens of papers, and ultimately left academia (Laskowski 2020). But Briney’s story isn’t about Pruitt — Briney focuses instead on one of his former collaborators, Kate Laskowski. Laskowski, unlike Pruitt, is still an academic professor, which Briney attributes to her transparency and commitment to good data management. This opening anecdote does an excellent job of conveying one of the most important principles of data management — that good data management, while it can help your collaborators too, ultimately is meant to help yourself.
Briney is a former scientist and current librarian who has also authored two other books on data management topics. Because of this, Briney is well-situated to write on the topic — she has experience with data management from both the researcher’s and educator’s point of view. Her first book, Data Management for Researchers (Briney 2015), has the most in common with The Data Management Workbook. While Data Management for Researchers contains detailed explanations of various data management topics, The Data Management Workbook focuses more heavily on hands-on activities related to data management, with less background information given. Because of this, the two books complement each other well.
The Data Management Workbook is an updated, physical release of the author’s earlier, similarly titled eBook, The Research Data Management Workbook (Briney 2024). Both books have a similar goal — to share a set of exercises with academic researchers to help them better manage their data. Those who are already familiar with the eBook will find The Data Management Workbook familiar — it includes all the same worksheets, reorganized slightly for better flow. The print addition also adds an introduction, more context for each activity, and a handful of print-exclusive activities that aren’t found in the eBook. The print edition could be a valuable tool for those who prefer to do their thinking on paper, but since the space for each activity is limited, copies of each worksheet may be necessary for continued work. One downside is that, unlike the eBook, the print edition cannot receive quick updates or easily evolve with changing data management landscapes.
The activities in The Data Management Workbook are hands-on and practical, and anyone who has done or is currently conducting research will be able to immediately jump in and complete many of the exercises. The exercises are field agnostic, so they should be helpful to researchers in both the natural and social sciences. With the help of additional context, each activity has clear expectations on how and when they can be used. As a former researcher, the author uses a tone and language that will resonate with current researchers, while remaining accessible to both new researchers and librarians who may be getting started with research data management support.
Another difference between the eBook and print edition is their audience – per the author, the online Research Data Management Workbook, while intended for use by researchers, was also written for data librarians (Briney 2025b). The worksheets are easy to incorporate into limited interactions with researchers, like one-shot workshops or consultations. In contrast, the print edition appears to be meant for an audience of researchers alone. The additional text, mainly in the introduction and at the beginning of each activity, is speaking to current research scientists. However, the book is still a valuable resource for librarians. For example, librarians teaching with activities from either version of The Data Management Workbook could point researchers towards both versions of the book, so that they may choose whether they would prefer to acquire a print edition or not. However, the relationship between researchers and librarians could have been more explicit in the book. In a review of Data Management for Researchers, Enid Karr praises that the book “highlight[s] and promote[s] the role that academic librarians play in research data management” (Karr 2016), something that I did not see in The Data Management Workbook.
Overall, The Data Management Workbook is a useful tool for both researchers and those tasked with training them in data management. The workbook is practical and easy to use. Because of its modular nature, researchers can truly jump in at any point in the research lifecycle and easily move around to different activities as needed. It’s not likely to be fully used start-to-finish for every project (for example, the “Separate from Your Institution” worksheet might not be needed for every project!), but some of these exercises will be useful for any research project. Librarians should also take advantage of the book for inspiration — data librarians who are new to the field, craving more interactive activities for workshops, or looking for structure for data consultations will find plenty to work with here.
References
Briney, Kristin. 2015. Data Management for Researchers: Organize, Maintain and Share Your Data for Research Success. Pelagic Publishing Limited.
Briney, Kristin. 2024. The Research Data Management Workbook. https://caltechlibrary.github.io/RDMworkbook.
Briney, Kristin. 2025a. The Data Management Workbook. Research Skills. Pelagic Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.53061/QVLQ9093.
Briney, Kristin. 2025b. “The Research Data Management Workbook: Building a Collection of Data Management Exercises to Bridge Data Information Literacy and Data Management Implementation.” Journal of eScience Librarianship 14 (1): e937. https://doi.org/10.7191/jeslib.937.
Karr, Enid Y. 2016. “Book Review: Data Management for Researchers: Organize, Maintain and Share Your Data for Research Success.” Journal of eScience Librarianship 4 (2): e1088. https://doi.org/10.7191/jeslib.2015.1088.
Laskowski, Kate. 2020. What to Do When You Don’t Trust Your Data Anymore – Laskowski Lab at UC Davis. January 29. https://laskowskilab.faculty.ucdavis.edu/2020/01/29/retractions.