Human libraries are events intended to provide readers with access to the knowledge and lived experiences of their fellow community members. These events are growing in popularity worldwide, and while often hosted by traditional libraries, can take place in a variety of community organization settings. Human library events depend on the services of the "human books" who volunteer to participate, though recruitment of these volunteers remains one of the most challenging aspects of hosting the events. Previous work has shown that human books enjoy participation in these events, though the specific benefits of human libraries for the human books have not been explored. In this study, we analyze the post-event survey responses of human books from four different human library events hosted by various institutions. Participants reported a variety of benefits ranging from altruistic to more self-focused. Reviewing their responses, we suggest eight major categories of benefits for human books. Findings hold implications for effectively recruiting and motivating potential human books, as well as how host institutions may adapt human libraries to the needs of their communities.
The complexity of computationally-intensive scientific research poses great challenges for both research data management and research reproducibility. What metadata needs to be captured for tracking, reproducing, and reusing computational results is the starting point in developing metadata models to fulfil these functions of data management. This paper reports the findings from interviews with gravitational wave (GW) researchers, which were designed to gather user requirements to develop a metadata model. Motivations for keeping documentation of data and analysis results include trust, accountability and continuity of work. Research reproducibility relies on metadata that represents code dependencies and versions and has good documentation for verification. Metadata specific to GW data, workflows and outputs tend to differ from those currently available in metadata standards. The paper also discusses the challenges in representing code dependencies and workflows..
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