Big Data, Little Data, No Data

Data, scholarship, and the systems around them

Big Data, Little Data, No Data: Scholarship in the Networked World is a thoughtful, research-driven look at how data actually work in scholarly life. Christine L. Borgman does not treat data as a simple technical asset; instead, she shows how research data sit inside a broader infrastructure of people, practices, technologies, institutions, and policy choices.

The result is a book that moves beyond the usual buzz around “big data.” Borgman makes room for the smaller, messier, and often overlooked realities of scholarship: data that are incomplete, hard to find, difficult to share, or not available at all. That perspective gives the book real value for readers who want a more grounded understanding of research data and their role in academic work.

What the book covers

• how to think about data in scholarly contexts
• differences among big data, little data, and no data
• discipline-specific data practices in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities
• questions of sharing, reuse, attribution, and discovery
• what should be retained and why

Why it stands out

Borgman combines conceptual clarity with concrete case studies, giving the book a balance of theory and practical insight. The structure makes it especially useful for readers who need to understand not just the existence of data, but the conditions that shape how data are produced, preserved, circulated, and interpreted.

A strong fit for

This title will be especially relevant to researchers, graduate students, librarians, data stewards, information professionals, and anyone working with scholarly communication or research infrastructure. It is a serious, focused, and highly usable guide to a subject that continues to shape modern scholarship.