Examine Law Library Practice Through the Lens of DIKW Model—Part IA: Metadata

Abstract

In this issue, I would like to continue to explore data in the DIKW (data-information-knowledge-wisdom) framework with a particular emphasis on the role that law librarians and libraries can play in ensuring data quality and transparency to help redress the issue of replicability (and reproducibility1) in the context of legal research and scholarship. As always, the point of this new column is to explore issues important to our profession and that could become a worthy topic to research and discuss in more depth. As mentioned before, this column never pretends to be exhaustive or conclusive; instead, it aims to suggest a few topics as a starting point. In a joint statement released in October 2022, eleven law reviews and journals from nine US law schools asked for the creation of rules requiring the disclosure of data and code used in published empirical legal studies. The joint declaration is an encouraging and constructive move driven by “concerns regarding the reliability and replicability of empirical social scientific results.”2 All academic fields, including science, engineering, social and behavioral sciences, and management, have long struggled with the problem of replication.3 A 2013 article in The Economist titled “How Science Goes Wrong” attracted the public's attention to the issues with reproducibility and