This chapter addresses questions related to the complex relationships between information, data, and human beings, frequently treated as the foundation of information and data ecologies. We focus on issues that have varied interfaces with literacies, but are not literacies in the proper sense of the word. The first part of this chapter focuses on openness, reproducibility, credibility, and sharing of digital data. Attention is given to research data’s Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse. There is also a short discussion of the relationship between research data and copyright. In the second part, data journals and data papers are targeted, and attention is paid to the problems of measuring and evaluating research data. The third part touches on varied issues, such as possible coauthorships between librarians and researchers, research data management, reputation management, information and data overload, posttruth phenomena and the influence of posttruth, as well as the deluge of publications related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chapter 2 - Information and data ecologies