Director of the UCLA Library Data Science Center with 26 years of UC experience scaling research data infrastructure, open science programs, and multi-campus training networks.https://www.tim-dennis.com/https://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-09-24-gis-librarians-r1-crosspost/https://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-09-24-gis-librarians-r1-crosspost/A survey of dedicated GIS librarian positions at all 187 Carnegie R1 universities, and a look at UCLA, the only UC campus to cut the role. Originally published as a standalone report.Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTGISgeospatiallibrarianshipresearch librariesUCLAhttps://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-09-24-ucla-research-data-infrastructure-crosspost/https://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-09-24-ucla-research-data-infrastructure-crosspost/The public evidence package I built for UCLA's 2026 One IT Research Working Group, carrying the Research Data Working Group's 2021-2024 findings into the campus review. Originally published as a standalone site.Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTresearch dataresearch computinginfrastructureUCLApolicyhttps://www.tim-dennis.com/blog/2026-09-21-openalex-bibliometrics-lesson/https://www.tim-dennis.com/blog/2026-09-21-openalex-bibliometrics-lesson/Building an optional Library Carpentry episode on the OpenAlex API turned into a real lesson in author disambiguation when my own ORCID pointed at someone else's decades of research.Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTlibrary carpentryopen sciencebibliometricsdata scienceRteachinghttps://www.tim-dennis.com/blog/2026-08-16-fall-2026-uc-carpentries-workshop/https://www.tim-dennis.com/blog/2026-08-16-fall-2026-uc-carpentries-workshop/A two-week online Carpentries series across UC campuses this September: Software Carpentry, Library Carpentry, and a Sharing Research Software session. I built the site, ran instructor sign-up and outreach, and I'm teaching.Sun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTcarpentrieslibrary instructionUCLAopen sciencehttps://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-08-16-what-i-dont-let-an-ai-agent-decide/https://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-08-16-what-i-dont-let-an-ai-agent-decide/A tool for building Carpentries workshop websites with any AI coding agent. The interesting design choice wasn't the automation. It was where the agent's judgment stops and a hard rule takes over.Sun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTAIagentic codingClaude Codecarpentrieslibrary instructionhttps://www.tim-dennis.com/blog/2026-07-25-library-leadership-is-stewarding-the-wrong-thing/https://www.tim-dennis.com/blog/2026-07-25-library-leadership-is-stewarding-the-wrong-thing/Ask what a library leader is supposed to protect and the answers you get are a building, a budget, and a collection. Those are means, not the mission. The job is stewarding the conditions under which knowledge gets made.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTlibrary leadershiphigher educationinformation sciencevisionhttps://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-07-25-curation-work-not-code-work/https://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-07-25-curation-work-not-code-work/Rebuilding a Carpentries lesson on software citation taught me that the reframe that mattered wasn't a new standard. It was retargeting the whole lesson from researchers publishing their own code to librarians advising other people's.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTopen sourceOSPOCarpentrieslesson designlibrary instructionresearch softwarehttps://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-07-25-the-prompt-that-makes-a-model-disagree-with-me/https://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-07-25-the-prompt-that-makes-a-model-disagree-with-me/A standing prompt template whose only job is to stop a second model from agreeing with my own diagnosis. Tested it on my own project-management setup and it found the weak joint in an argument I was ready to act on.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTAILLMworkflowverificationdecision-makinghttps://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-07-25-the-single-underscore-that-broke-my-task-system/https://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-07-25-the-single-underscore-that-broke-my-task-system/A CLI task manager that worked fine in my terminal silently failed inside Claude Code sessions. The cause wasn't a bug in the tool, it was a shell-snapshot mechanism that quietly drops single-underscore function names before the agent ever sees them.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTAIClaude Codeworkflowshelldebuggingtoolinghttps://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-07-02-three-llms-without-getting-burned/https://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-07-02-three-llms-without-getting-burned/Claude, ChatGPT, and NotebookLM each do different work in my writing. The thing that keeps them useful is not the model. It's a verification habit borrowed from the reference desk: every claim gets ground-truthed before it ships.Thu, 02 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTAILLMworkflowverificationlibrarianshipprovenancehttps://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-06-30-lesson-catalog-metadata/https://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-06-30-lesson-catalog-metadata/A couple weeks ago I noticed our OSPO lesson catalog leaned hard toward one pathway. This week I went in and fixed the metadata underneath it. The cleanup taught me more than the result did.Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTopen sourceOSPOeducationmetadatataxonomyschema.orghttps://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-06-13-learn-by-doing-open-source-resources/https://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-06-13-learn-by-doing-open-source-resources/Gathering the interactive, guided, and gamified resources for learning open source and DevOps skills — the kind that teach by doing, like swirl did for R. A starting list to bring to the UC OSPO education group.Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTopen sourceOSPOeducationself-studyDevOpsresearch softwarehttps://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-06-12-bus-factor-of-one/https://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-06-12-bus-factor-of-one/Three pieces I bookmarked this year that keep pointing at the same thing: a lot of the software running the world rests on one or two people, and almost no one funds them.Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTsoftware sustainabilityopen sourceinfrastructuremaintenanceAIhttps://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-06-12-ospo-solo-maintainers/https://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-06-12-ospo-solo-maintainers/A working note: if critical open source rests on a few unpaid people, and some of them are inside the UC system, what could a university open source program office actually do about it?Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTOSPOopen sourcesoftware sustainabilityUCinfrastructurehttps://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-05-19-imls-pilots-first-results-crosspost/https://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-05-19-imls-pilots-first-results-crosspost/First results from the external community pilots of our open science curriculum for librarians: lessons run long, funder policies move fast, and line-level feedback is gold.Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTopen sciencecurriculumIMLSpilotslibrariansresearch datahttps://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-03-04-datasquad-model-linkpost/https://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-03-04-datasquad-model-linkpost/Link to a DataSquad post on the undergraduate research consultant model, with commentary.Wed, 04 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTDataSquadworkforce developmentresearch supporthttps://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-03-04-imls-open-science-crosspost/https://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-03-04-imls-open-science-crosspost/Summary of progress on the IMLS-funded open science curriculum, originally posted on the project site.Wed, 04 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTopen scienceIMLScurriculumlibrarianshttps://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-03-04-on-research-data-infrastructure/https://www.tim-dennis.com/notes/2026-03-04-on-research-data-infrastructure/A short note on the difference between data storage and real data infrastructure.Wed, 04 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTresearch datainfrastructureopen sciencehttps://www.tim-dennis.com/blog/2026-03-03-building-programs-that-outlast-their-founders/https://www.tim-dennis.com/blog/2026-03-03-building-programs-that-outlast-their-founders/Most library programs die when the person who built them leaves. The ones that survive are not better — they are differently structured. Here is what that structure looks like.Tue, 03 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTlibrary leadershipprogramssustainabilitygovernancehttps://www.tim-dennis.com/blog/2026-03-03-what-research-data-infrastructure-requires/https://www.tim-dennis.com/blog/2026-03-03-what-research-data-infrastructure-requires/Research data infrastructure is not an IT problem. It is a scholarly stewardship problem — and libraries are uniquely positioned to lead it, but only if we're willing to be more than service providers.Tue, 03 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTresearch datalibrary leadershipinfrastructureopen sciencehttps://www.tim-dennis.com/blog/2026-03-01-from-instructor-to-infrastructure-builder/https://www.tim-dennis.com/blog/2026-03-01-from-instructor-to-infrastructure-builder/How eight years of work at UCLA evolved from teaching data skills to building the systems that make open, sustainable research possible.Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTresearch infrastructurecarpentriesUCLAopen science