This post is part of our Curators’ Corner series. Every so often we’ll feature a different DCN Curator. The series grew out of a community-building activity wherein curators at our partner organizations interview each other “chain-letter style” in order to get to know each other and their work outside of the DCN better. We hope you enjoy these posts!
Sarah Reiff Conell is the Research Data Management Specialist at Princeton University. Sarah was interviewed by Jennifer Patiño in April 2025.
How did you come to your current position?
I came to this position through a PhD in art history. I was a project manager for a few different projects, but in each of my positions, I always found the data part of it very interesting. I was focused on what the standards were that we were trying to adhere to and I just kind of fell down that data rabbit hole. When I finished my dissertation, I was really hoping to find a place where I could use those skills and leverage my interest in data, but also work in a really collaborative, research-focused environment. This position ended up being a really great fit for those goals. I have been here for just over two years now, and it has been a really great place for collaboration – in part because the DCN is so collaborative. Funnily enough, before I came to this position, I didn’t know that what I was doing before was called “data curation”. I was doing the same kind of work, but maybe because art history is a little bit more restrictive about how they use the term “curation” – I hadn’t heard it phrased that way before.
What do you do?
I’m a research data management specialist at Princeton, and so my time is split in a few different ways. I support our institutional research data repository and so I’ll do curation tasks on things that are being submitted for publication there. We also recently finished migrating our data to a custom made institutional data repository, and so over the last year or so I have also been doing more things like user testing and ticket-writing to address bugs that inevitably come up when using a new tool.
My role, specifically, is oriented towards the humanities, since that is my background. As part of being a bridge to the humanities, I often collaborate with the Center for Digital Humanities. I support the graduate student fellows as part of the research data fellowship funded by the CDH and provide a lot of one-on-one consultations. I really like consultations because it is where I get to learn about someone’s research as I help them work through some data related questions. I’m an editor for a data collective journal, Nineteenth-Century Data Collective (C19). As part of my work on this publication, I mentor a University Administrative Fellow, helping them gain experience in publishing as well as data curation practices.
My department presents workshops year round about the basics of data management, and we are always trying something new. I teach responsible conduct of research sessions at different departments across campus and present during orientations for new graduate students. Like so many of us, I also work on things like data management planning and providing feedback through the DMP Tool. So, it’s a little bit of a smattering of tasks, but that keeps things interesting.
How much of your job involves data curation?
I would say about a third, although it kind of ebbs and flows throughout the semester. Usually when there’s a break, data curation is closer to around half of the time that we’re spending. I expect this is because researchers are done with grading and able to turn their attention back to their own projects at those times. So, curating is a good portion of what I do, but it’s all part of a larger mix.
Is there anything that you feel is especially different or surprising about working with humanities data?
I think one of the things that I find really surprising, in a good way, is the kind of interest in getting support for curating and refining data sets. I found that researchers are really enthusiastic about getting some guidance on how to make their data sets presentable to the public and it seems a lot of hesitation can be mitigated by offering a little bit of encouragement and support. And we’re also trying to create more asynchronous materials so that people can feel a little bit more confident about releasing portions of their data or all of their data. I think that’s the biggest and best surprise. An aspect that is maybe less surprising is the variety of data types in the humanities. It can be really hard to figure out how all these things might talk to each other, how they might share terminology, how to engage in linking open data – all of this is an interesting space to be in.
Why is data curation important to you?
Oh man, it’s important because we want to have data that are usable in the future. This is evident when looking through some of the older data sets that didn’t have much oversight or guidance in our own local context. You can see the kind of difference it can make to have a team in place to help make sure that at least the minimum amount of documentation is available for data. Data curation is important because it is central to making sure that data we share and preserve are actually useful.
Why is the Data Curation Network important?
The Data Curation Network is full of wonderful people and people helping others learn and grow. And so that’s, I think, one of the best things about this group. But also that we’re able to work together as a network, ask things of each other, lean on each other if we are suddenly getting a huge influx of data sets that maybe somewhere else that isn’t experiencing – that we can help each other by sharing our time and skills. If there’s someone who doesn’t have a particular expertise, you’re still able to provide really high quality curation because we’re able to tap into a larger network. And so it’s the people and the practice together that make the DCN so wonderful and incredibly important.
If you weren’t doing data curation, what would you be doing?
You know, I might be out on a ship somewhere sailing or being an antiques dealer. That is at least my current wild hair. Maybe a YouTube sensation? I don’t know. There’s so many interesting things to be doing out there, but I’m a big fan of old stuff. And so I’d probably be somewhere doing something with old things because that’s my love. And it’s also one of the things that I really like about working in an institution with special collections and interesting research going on, is that I can still be learning about history. And so, I definitely would want to do something that connects me to that, whether that be dealing in antiques or sailing, maybe on an old Barkentine like Gazela in Philadelphia. Either way, I bet I’d be looking at old treasures and hopefully saving them from the landfill.
Is there anything in the special collections that is your favorite thing or something that you like going back to?
I think it changes all the time, but right now, my newest thing that I’m excited about are bat books. Have you heard about bat books? I just learned about them recently, which is amazing to me because I like odd, small things from the past and if they are in book-form, that’s even better. My favorite animal is the bat. So how did I not know about bat books, you might ask? I have no idea! They are basically these small sort of booklets, often they’re calendars or abbreviated forms of information recorded in a small, folded booklet that then hangs from a flap attached to a belt – like a quick reference kind of thing. At first, their folds reminded me of a zine! When people were engaging with a “bat book”, they would open it – at which point it’s like the book is flying. Isn’t that great?! So it hangs upside down when it’s “asleep” and it “flys” when you read it. But there’s not one type of content that unites all bat books. The phrase was coined, I believe, in 2016, to describe a structural form. I love “bat book” as a category of object. We have one that is in that 2016 catalog, so I’m hoping to go see it soon. This is a subject I’ve just learned about, and I am sure there is much more to know.
What’s your favorite cuisine?
Ooh, I love variety. So any cuisine all the time would not be fun, but the thing that I probably miss the most is Tex-Mex. In particular, a very specific type of tacos El Pastor that are hard to find outside of South Central Texas (where I grew up).
What do you like to do outside of work?
I love to thrift. I am a big fan of the hunt. Of just looking around and seeing what interesting objects are out there. And I love a deal. So that’s always helpful. I also love to sail. So anytime I can get out on a sailboat, I am for it. I did not take up sailing until I was in graduate school. And actually, it was my pandemic hobby that kind of took over, but I had the opportunity to sail with a small club that made it really accessible to try it out and had just the best time. And I think it’s like magic to use cloth and rope to propel yourself through water. It’s amazing to me.
What’s your favorite city?
Oh, it’s, you know, probably a city I’ve never been to that someone else really loves and is showing me around. But I think the city that I’ve been to that I felt like, “oh, wow, this is just like such a perfectly cool place” was probably Bruges, Belgium. I loved that they had delicious food and treats and it was built along the water. Everything looks like it was constructed in the late Middle Ages, which absolutely suits my aesthetic. They also have a Holy Blood chapel and a nun whose job was to sanitize a relic vial between each person’s engagement with it. This memory sticks with me. I think about this nun who sanitizes a relic hundreds of times a day. I find this scene so compelling – a fabulous intersection of the miraculous and the mundane.
Where would you most like to travel to next?
So many places! Japan comes to mind. India comes to mind. You know, I think anywhere that I haven’t been before would be really great, but especially somewhere farther east than Vienna (which is the most eastern city I’ve visited at this point from the US perspective).
Is there anything else you would like to talk about?
I hear you like zines – me too! I’ve been trying to think about how to incorporate zines in our outreach on campus about data management, how to make it like super bite size. I really like it when I can transform things that already exist, but make it something visually engaging, you know, and kind of lowering the barrier for people to engage. I feel like zines are so inviting. I don’t know if you saw the zine that Mikala and I had released – it was basically the same Save Data stuff. This was a fun little one to have out before Love Data Week, because that’s another thing that I like I do. I’m a co-organizer for Love Data Week here. And so, we put out a zine library this year and we just low-key set it out in the Makerspace with some other data-related zines, including the one by Dombrowski, Walsh, Kreymer, Kijas, and Visconti and a few other ones about general data things that week. And people were taking them, which is wonderful!
I love this Save Data zine – this is so helpful!
Oh, good! Yes. You’re welcome to share it! The information’s out there, but it’s sometimes hard with the attention economy to find ways to engage and connect with content even when you care about a topic. So I thought, well, maybe a zine is another way of inviting people in. I’m glad when someone finds it helpful!
To learn more about Sarah, and the datasets she has curated for the DCN, see her curator page!