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From Attending to Belonging: Reflections from RDAP 2026

I am Yaoguang Li, a Research Services Librarian at the University of Connecticut, where I support research in agriculture, biology, and related fields. Attending the 2026 RDAP Summit was both inspiring and grounding, and it gave me new perspectives on how data services can better center community needs. At our institution, we do not currently have a designated data librarian, and data support is distributed across different units. Because of this, many of the conversations at RDAP felt especially relevant. They offered practical ways to build data services through collaboration, rather than relying on a single role or centralized structure.

One of my biggest takeaways this year was this: community is not just a concept, but a practice embedded in everyday work. In my consultations, I often see how data workflows, from collection to sharing, are shaped by human relationships and institutional contexts. The Summit pushed me to think more intentionally about meeting researchers where they are, rather than expecting them to adopt idealized workflows.

Two talks particularly stood out to me. “There’s No One Way to Learn Research Data Skills: Practical Lessons From Coordinating Library and IT Workshops” showed how Libraries and IT can collaborate to offer flexible, scalable training. What impressed me was how much they accomplished without formal mergers, focusing instead on shared goals, coordinated outreach, and common assessment practices. The second talk, “Collaboration between Libraries and IT Data Concierge: Bespoke RDM consulting for PIs”, deeply resonated with my own experience working with researchers. The “data concierge” model, meeting labs where they are and building tailored, iterative solutions, felt both realistic and impactful. It also highlighted something important: technical fixes are only part of the work. Supporting cultural change, decision-making, and the motivation to actually implement new workflows is just as critical.

There were so many memorable events at this summit. A particular one was the 2026 RDAP Summit Buddy Program. My mentor, Ali Krzton, helped set a welcoming tone from the start. Seeing her engaged in the business meeting and social sessions made me feel like I was part of the community, not just attending an event. Another standout for me was the shared notes across sessions. They were practical, but more importantly, they reflected a culture of collective knowledge-building. That spirit made the conference feel open and accessible, and it is something I hope to carry into my own teaching and outreach.

I was also struck by how many participants came from science backgrounds. As someone trained in genetics and breeding before transitioning into librarianship, I found this especially meaningful. It created a shared language and highlighted the important role of data professionals who bridge disciplinary expertise with data services. The conference theme, “Building on Experience: Centering Communities in Data Creation and Access”, encouraged me to think beyond technical solutions and consider the broader social and organizational dimensions of data work.

Overall, what I enjoyed most about the Summit was the openness of the community. People were willing to share ideas, challenges, and even unfinished thoughts. I am grateful for the opportunity to attend and look forward to continuing to learn from the RDAP community and contributing to its ongoing work in the future!

I am a Senior Librarian at Kyambogo University, the second Public University in Uganda. In my 30 years of professional experience, the 2026 RDAP (Research Data Access & Preservation) Summit was the first I attended virtually and was greatly enriching. This year’s theme, “Practical, Personalized, Impactful: Research Data in the Real World” was at the heart of every session and hallway conversation I managed to attend.

The presentation by Andrew Johnson and Renaine Julian on FAIR Facilities and Instruments: Recommendations for Adoption of Research Instrument, Platform, and Facility Persistent Identifiers, was intriguing for me. I had never anticipated that persistent identifiers can be used this far. However, the most inspiring was a presentation by Dr. Miranda Reyes, who presented the case of community data steward from the Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network. She challenged us to ask, “Who owns the question?” Arguing that researchers often extract data from communities and then decide what problems to solve. Instead, she advocated for flipping the script: let communities define the questions, then build data systems around those needs. I had never thought about data creation as an act of relational accountability rather than just technical management. That session alone shifted my entire perspective on how I should teach graduate students.

What I enjoyed were the informal lighter talk and laughter about the coffee, dogs, cats and horses creating a sense of bonding despite being far apart. What surprised me were the confessions of data managers admitting past failures including projects where robust repositories were built but no community actually used them. Instead of shame, the confessions sparked successful collaborative problem-solving. I realized that “building on experience” means honoring both successes and mistakes. The most helpful session for my goals was the presentation by DataCite which encouraged me to pursue membership for my University since I am at the centre of establishing a Multidisciplinary Journal. The membership shall help our university to access the services and be able to provide persistence identifiers for not only journal articles but also the related data which we intend to preserve, contributing to improved research visibility and impact. I plan to pilot these in our University in the course of the next financial year 2026/2027. 

My mentor played a crucial role in encouraging me and supporting throughout the conferences and I am highly indebted to RDAP for the sponsorship and Dr. Ali Krzton-Mentor. I left the Summit better and with a renewed commitment to promote RDAP locally.

My name is Natalie Lau, I am currently the Scholarly Communications Librarian at Seton Hall University located in South Orange, New Jersey. This was my second time attending the RDAP Summit. This year’s theme of Practical, Personalized, Impactful: Research Data in the Real World was heavily interesting to me because my current position is active in our Research Data Services (RDS). This year’s theme resonated with me as I am interested in the practical aspects of our RDS, especially in the actionable services we can offer as well as the personal nature of consultations versus workshops and, of course, the impact that RDS can have in scholarship and research. The work that RDS does can be felt so palpably at times and being able to support scholarship and research in the way that we do is felt but often not seen as impactful at times. 

I enjoyed Session 7B, “Reconsidering Direct Charge Models for Research Data Services”. I had been aware of charges for services in academic libraries, one topic I recall discussing in library school was revenue generation from the academic libraries. However, this session was different from that topic and serves as an expansion of a conversation that I think a lot of academic librarians discuss.

I enjoyed the poster session the most about the Summit. I loved the poster session when I attended the 2024 Summit for the first time so I was especially excited to see what this year’s entailed. I like the poster sessions because of the breakout room modality: I love that it provides a smaller space to ask questions and discuss topics and results with the poster presenters! I really enjoyed the poster “Generative AI, the Data Lifecycle, and Hard Science Applications” by Coryn Millander and Sara M. Samuel. While I am not a science librarian, I found the applications with the data lifecycle to be interesting and pertinent.

I do tend to feel that conferences are great for professional development and I love the environment of them to foster and nurture relationships across the country, and sometimes across the world. Since I am still under five years in librarianship, staying up to date with cutting edge work and talking with others in the field has proven to be invaluable. I would like to thank the RDAP Awards Task Force and Sponsorship Action Committee for this opportunity!

My name is Madeline Streeter, I’m a Master of Library and Information Science student at Syracuse University with a focus in digital archives, particularly as they deal with accessibility and cultural heritage. I was able to attend through the support of the scholarship program, which sent me through a very welcoming first-timer pathway of introduction.

As someone less versed in the data aspects of my professional area, my primary interest in attending was to expand my knowledge and awareness of contemporary data projects, issues, and discussions particularly as they interact with archival spaces. I have to admit, though, there was an amount of trepidation as to how “beginner-friendly” my conference experience might be, given my freshness to the scene.

The 2026 RDAP Summit met my hopes and then surpassed them. Through the Summit Buddy program I was swiftly connected with Rachel Woodbrook who shared mutual interest in data ethics, accessibility, and interactions with cultural heritage organizations. She was able to speak with me on her work in those areas as well as to provide me with a good preemptive sense of the community of RDAP, coming from a longstanding role of involvement and active organizational planning. What particularly stood out to me in that conversation is something that carried forward throughout the summit; a concept of RDAP as a setting to tangibly address modern anxieties around data and archives, and to build communal support in the process.

In particular, I was struck by how much the summit did not merely dwell in the struggle of the ongoing climate, but provided actionable avenues and resources. The keynote address introduced me to the Data Rescue Project and its extensive response efforts to emergencies of public data. As the project is highly dependent on volunteers, it was meaningful to see the talk present many ways in which a person in my situation could become involved. I felt the immediate drive to action, an energy which set the tone of the program.

Talks such as “Addressing Ethical Tensions in Archiving and Sharing Anthropological Research Data”, “Collections-as-data in the real world”, and “‘Our repository doesn’t publish sensitive data...’: But how do we put this into practice?” were grounded conversations that provided insight on the specific sort of contemporary practices that I am grateful to be able to bring as a basis to my future work.

In particular, Celia Emmelhainz’s remarks on archival labor and concern for worker wellbeing addressed a topic that I found to be underrepresented and yet incredibly resonant. She quoted something to the effect of “We cannot fix the harms of the past by harming the workers of the present”, and I know that the sentiment will be sticking with me throughout my career.

I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to attend the conference through the generosity of the scholarship program. I was able to strengthen my sense of community, stay informed, and find new steps forward. I would heartily express the RDAP summit as an event that truly meets the moment.

My name is Alahna, and I am a master's student in library and information science at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During the summit, I learned about good data practice and how that is being put into effect with different projects that people are working on like the Emmett Till project in New Orleans. Another project that I learned about is The Data Nudge which is a monthly newsletter created by Sandi Caldrone. The newsletter strives to help people and organizations have better research data management and I will be following this newsletter in the future to stay informed.

My experience with the theme “Building on Experience: Centering Communities in Data Creation and Access” comes from an internship I did in digital preservation where we were preserving the records of churches in the Rogers Park, Chicago, Illinois community. This project was started by a professor at Loyola University Chicago to preserve the history of churches that were being closed down and consolidated under one church. The history of these churches were going to be lost, so he decided to preserve their records and create an online exhibit so people would be  able to access and learn about the churches’ history. During the internship we had to do a lot of re-curation for some of the records,which Bryan Gee talked about in relation to the Texas Data repository.

A talk that interested me the most was the session called Our Repository Doesn’t Publish Sensitive Data But How Do We Put This Into Practice. It was led by Amy Ferguson, Alicia Hoeflich Mohr, Leslie Kirsch, and Rachel Woodbrook. I have not had the chance to work with overly sensitive material yet, so getting the chance to learn more about the discussions  happening around it was really informative. During the talk a topic of discussion was data use agreements and how the individual and organizations format them.

Overall, the thing that I enjoyed most about the summit were the panels. Even though I did not ask a lot of questions during them I really liked seeing all the questions other people had. As someone who is very new to the profession it was really good to see what questions professions had for the field. Every day of the summit I learned so many new things and got to see what the main points of discussion are for people who have been working in this profession for a long time. I am thankful for the opportunity granted to me to be able to participate in this year's RDAP Summit.

Introduction

The 2026 Research Data Access and Preservation (RDAP) Summit served as a critical nexus for evaluating the current trajectory of information sciences, articulated through the theme “Evolutions in Data Services: Forging Resiliency.” In a period characterized by the accelerating integration of large-scale computational models, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and changing institutional policies, the concept of resiliency has transitioned from a buzzword to a foundational requirement for sustainable research support. The ability to attend the RDAP Summit 2026 and engage with these themes provided a vital perspective on how emerging practitioners can navigate the tension between rapid technological evolutions and the pursuit of long-term data stability and durability.

The Evolutionary Imperative

The “Evolutions” discussed throughout the summit underscore a fundamental shift in the role of the data professional. We are witnessing a transition from the librarian as a passive curator to the data professional as an active collaborator in the research lifecycle. This evolution is necessitated by the increasing complexity of the data formats and the stringent requirements of the federal funding mandates. The summit emphasized that this evolution, however, is not merely a technical pursuit; rather a recalibration of the service models to prioritize interoperability and ethical stewardship. The sessions highlighted that for the data services to evolve meaningfully, they must remain responsive to the needs of the diverse research communities while maintaining a commitment to FAIR and CARE principles.

Forging Resiliency Through Community

Resiliency, in the context of the RDAP community, is often forged through collective intelligence rather than siloed experts. The “Forging Resiliency” aspect of the theme speaks to the intentionality required to build infrastructures and systems that can support these evolving and adapting data service expectations. The summit illustrated that resiliency is deeply tied to the strength of professional networks and thus facilitated interactions with experts who underscored that the most resilient systems are those built on transparency, shared documentation, and inclusive practices.

The RDAP 2026 Summit reaffirmed that the future of data services lies in our ability to synthesize change with stability. The insights gained as a scholarship recipient serve as a catalyst for ongoing scholarly inquiry into how we might better institutionalize these practices to ensure the longevity of the global research record.

My name is Edmund Kwadwo Fosu, and I am a Pre-Professional Graduate Assistant at the Grainger Engineering Library Information Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. I am also completing my Master of Science in Library and Information Science at Illinois. Receiving an RDAP scholarship gave me the opportunity to attend the 2026 RDAP Summit, and I am very grateful for that support.

As someone whose work has centered on student support, instruction, research assistance, and digital access, I found the 2026 summit theme, “Practical, Personalized, Impactful: Research Data in the Real World,” especially meaningful. It reflected a view of data services that I found both realistic and inspiring: data support is not only about tools and policies, but also about people, context, communication, and responsive service.

One of the most thought-provoking parts of the summit for me was the keynote, “From Rapid Response to Sustainable Infrastructure: A Year with the Data Rescue Project.” The keynote showed how public data preservation can move from urgent action to long-term, community-supported infrastructure. That was especially valuable to me because it highlighted the broader social role of data work and reminded me that access, preservation, and stewardship are deeply connected to public trust and public good.

I was also drawn to sessions that emphasized practical teaching and support models, including work on research data integrity, qualitative research support, data literacy, AI-ready data, and data accessibility. These topics helped me see more clearly how research data services can be made more usable and more responsive to real researcher needs. The program’s attention to both technical and human dimensions of data services was one of the most helpful aspects of the summit for me.

What I appreciated most about RDAP was the way it brought together a community of people thinking seriously about how to support research in thoughtful, adaptable, and collaborative ways. Even in a virtual setting, the summit felt rich with ideas and professional generosity. As I continue building my career in librarianship, I hope to carry forward what I learned about practical support, accessibility, sustainability, and user-centered data services. I am thankful to RDAP and the scholarship sponsors for making this experience possible.

Nowadays, even though we have access to a vast array of learning resources, I still value learning from the real-world experiences of my peers. I greatly appreciate that the RDAP Summit continues to bring together data professionals and librarians from around the world to share successful service models and emerging research. Its virtual format makes participation especially accessible, allowing us to attend without the barriers of travel.

I began my role as a Research Data Librarian in June 2024. About six months into the position, while I was still finding my footing, I encountered concerns around the trustworthiness of U.S. federal data – particularly instances where datasets were missing or modified on government websites. Researchers at my institution highlighted how these issues were affecting their work. In response, I created a research guide that pointed to
alternative data sources. However, I realized I had not yet provided guidance on how to assess federal data quality, use such data responsibly, or develop strategies for locating reliable alternatives. At the time, I lacked the confidence and insight to fully address these challenges.

Session 1B, “Teaching Good Data Practice When "Official" Sources Are Unstable,” directly resonated with these concerns. In their presentation, “How Should We Teach About Federal Data Now?”, Lena Bohman and Beth Jarosz shared not only teaching strategies but also introduced several valuable resources for tracking and evaluating the health of federal data and government information. Additionally, the lightning talk “Tailoring Data Acquisition Support for Business Students in an Era of 'Missing' Data” by Madison Golden and Lorelei Rutledge offered practical insights into guiding students toward alternative data sources for their research projects. I am deeply grateful to these speakers for sharing their experiences and perspectives, which provided me with concrete ideas for developing
instruction around data integrity.

I also found Sandi Caldrone’s presentation on Data Nudge particularly inspiring. In our data services team, I had previously proposed a weekly newsletter to promote data management best practices. However, given researchers’ limited time and already crowded inboxes, we decided not to move forward with that idea. The concept of Data Nudge presents an appealing alternative – concise, engaging, and designed to deliver targeted messages efficiently. I am excited to adopt this idea and decided to collaborate with my team to create our own version.

Finally, I greatly appreciated the opening keynote, which highlighted a compelling example of successful team collaboration and community engagement. This was my second time attending the RDAP Summit, and it remains one of the most impactful conferences I have experienced. I would like to sincerely thank all the organizers and contributors who made this meaningful event possible.

My name is Rosalia Iriye, graduating Master in Library and Information Science (MLIS) at University of California - Los Angeles (UCLA) and Digital Collections Manager at the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE), and am grateful to have attended on scholarship RDAP 2026 Virtual Summit. Amidst federal dataset and funding terminations, attending has been guiding in my understanding of research data librarianship in public research institutions.

The work of the Data Rescue Project’s (DRP) framed the virtual conference in keynote, charting the volunteer-led organization’s development this past year preserving terminated federal datasets. I’ve been fortunate to have volunteered with DRP prior, and valued learning about the networks of support and how project management workflows responsively develop in a rapid timeframe. DRP’s Steering Committee described DRP’s infrastructure drawing from core organizations like RDAP Association, IASSIST, and Data Curation Network. I’ve been impressed by the scalability of DRP’s work, between automated solutions in scripting and minimal crosswalking to crowdsourcing metadata to broader groups of volunteers.

It’s evident how pivotal collaborations like DRP have been through public research data. The first sessions explored the use of such open data, beginning with Beth Jorasz and DRP co-founder Lena Bohman’s “How Should We Teach About Federal Data Now” in research data librarianship instruction. Madison Golden and Lorelei Rutledge’s “Tailoring Data Acquisition Support for Business Students in an Era of Missing Data” provided strategies for researchers and librarians alike in verification of data sources like DRP or regional alternatives. Alaina L. Pearce’s “Data as Scholarship: A Practical Framework for Engaging Researchers in Open Data” also reframed data management as a research product, which has been guiding the pathways in advocating for digital preservation. Andrew Mullins and Anwen Tormey “The Emmett Till Project in New Orleans: Creating a Community Dataset of Racially-Motivated Cold Case Homicides from Physical Archives,” highlighted the project’s unique positionality working directly with archivists under a government mandate and collaboration surrounding public funding cuts.

Overall in the Summit’s theme “Practical, Personalized, Impactful: Research Data in the Real World”, I reflect largely on the work of information professionals within federal repositories and in rescuing these datasets, and the need for coordination across rescue projects and workflow documentation. I’ve valued exploring data management practices building on and beyond federal support, as a dedication to open infrastructure and digital preservation.

Background

On April 24, 2024, the Department of Justice issued a new Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title II ruling that impacts the accessibility of web content at public institutions. In this ruling, state and local governments have deadlines for conforming their public-facing web content to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 standard. This includes libraries that are part of local governments or state universities. In addition, a new final rule issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will similarly require conformance to the WCAG 2.1 standard for entities receiving HHS funds, including Medicare and Medicaid funding, which includes many libraries that are part of hospitals or medical schools.

The Charge

Noting a lack of guidelines and standards relating to digital data accessibility, a group of data information professionals formed a working group in late 2024 through the Research Data Access and Preservation (RDAP) Association to produce a report on how the new U.S. ADA Title II rulings will impact data and data repositories, and summarize accessibility standards and best practices for datasets and repository platforms. The report, published in early 2026, is freely available and contains three subsections: how the new ADA Title II requirements apply to data and repositories; guidance for assessing and remediating accessibility of repository platforms; and recommendations for making data files accessible.

The Report

Drawing on a breadth of experience across academic research institutions, hospital systems, and both institutional and generalist data repositories from the US and Canada, the working group spent a year researching, convening, writing, and editing to create a report to support research data professionals in making data more accessible. After drafting an initial version of the report, the working group sent out the document for feedback from a selection of reviewers with expertise and lived experience in accessibility. A mostly-done draft version is now available, and after one more round of edits a final version will be released later in the spring.The working group hopes it will be of use to research data professionals interested in learning about the new rulings, the accessibility of research data repositories and research datasets, or, more broadly, to those interested in digital accessibility in general.

Key Takeaways

ADA Title II, HHS Section 504, and WCAG: What Research Data Professionals Need to Know

• These new rulings impact state and local government libraries as well as hospital and private university libraries.
• WCAG 2.1 is the standard that institutional website and mobile content will need to adhere to (minding certain exceptions).
• The new rulings likely apply to data and data repositories as it’s not clear that the stated exemptions apply, though it is best to seek the advice of your legal counsel for more specific guidance.
• Professionals and organizations will need to navigate a level of uncertainty in meeting the new WCAG 2.1 requirements.

Strategies and Considerations for Repository Accessibility

• Different considerations for data repository accessibility need to be taken depending on who hosts the repository the data resides in (e.g., developed in-house, institutionally hosted, vendor-hosted).
• Multiple templates and roadmaps exist for repository owners to begin developing accessibility policies.
• After an accessibility assessment, repositories can employ various remediation strategies as further described in the report.

Reviewing Accessibility Options for Research Data Files

• Basic guidance for making data accessible exists but further guidance needs to be developed, especially for non-standard and complex data.
• Researchers and data curators need to be trained in how to make data accessible so that data can be born-accessible or made accessible at the time of sharing.
• All datasets, including those that were structured to be more accessible, may need to be remediated in the future in response to specific access needs and requests.
• The accessibility of research data is an area of growth where engagement needs to increase at all levels, including: guidance development, robust education, researcher and curator implementation, and increased expectations for accessibility from institutions, journals, and funders.

Contributors

Chairs:

• Clara Llebot Lorente (Repositories)
• Rachel Woodbrook (ADA)
• Kristin Briney (Data)

List of members: Emily Blumenthal, Lena Bohman, Carrie Breton, Kristin Briney, Cameron Cook, Will Dean, Joseph Edgerton, Christine Nieman Hislop, Danielle Kirsch, Clara Llebot Lorente, Wendy Mann, Michal McCullough, Heather Charlotte Owen, Peyton Tvrdy, Sarah Weirich, and Rachel Woodbrook

Reviewers:

• Gail Betz
• Randy Colon
• Sagan Wallace

About RDAP

RDAP (Research Data Access & Preservation) supports an engaged community of information professionals committed to creating, maintaining, advancing, and teaching best practices for research data, access, and preservation.
The RDAP community brings together a variety of individuals, including data managers and curators, librarians, archivists, researchers, educators, students, technologists, and data scientists from academic institutions, data centers, funding agencies, and industry who represent a wide range of STEM disciplines, social sciences, and humanities.
https://rdapassociation.org/about 

Contact Us

For any questions or feedback about the report, please contact Kristin Briney (briney@caltech.edu), Clara Llebot Lorente (clara.llebot@oregonstate.edu), and/or Rachel Woodbrook (woodbr@umich.edu).