James A. Jacobs

2023 William H. Flanigan Award for Distinguished Service as an ICPSR Official Representative

James A. Jacobs is a Data Services Librarian Emeritus, from the University of California, San Diego. He has been an inspiration, visionary, and mentor to a generation of data services and government information librarians for over 35 years. Jacobs was an early innovator who designed and built web-based tools to search and access data online. In 1990, he co-created and began teaching the ICPSR Summer Program Workshop, “Providing Social Science Data Services: Strategies for Design and Operation” with Chuck Humphries (Flanigan Award, 2005) and Diane Geraci (Flanigan Award, 2009), a team known as “The Three Data Amigos.” Since its inception, this one-week course has rigorously grounded and trained hundreds of librarians, academic staff, and computing specialists in the fundamentals of offering social science data services at their institutions. Course participants have gone on to serve (and lead) our data profession, as well as the broader library field. “When the three of us were asked to teach the ICPSR Summer Workshop for 2014, Jim was extremely supportive and generous with his knowledge and experience as we approached the daunting task of standing on the shoulders of giants,” said Name Here. Jacobs is one of the co-founders of Free Government Information (FGI), which informs, organizes, and advocates for the preservation and perpetual free access to government information. He has served on the Administrative Committee of IASSIST (International Association for Social Science Services and Technology), and continues to research, write, and consult on government information and providing data services. A selection of his publications includes "Beyond LMGTFY: Access to Government Information in a Networked World," with James R. Jacobs in Public Knowledge: Access and Benefits, Edited by Miriam A. Drake and Donald T. Hawkins 2016; Data Basics: An Introductory Text, with Diane Geraci and Chuck Humphrey, 2012; "Born-Digital U.S. Federal Government Information: Preservation and Access" (2014 Report prepared for the Center for Research Libraries); and "Preserving research data" with Charles Humphrey (Communications of the ACM, 2004). Jacobs received his bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College and his MSLS from the University of Southern California.