Love Your Data (LYD) Week has arrived, and we have more reasons than ever to love our research data this year. We dedicate a lot of effort and expend a considerable amount of resources to building our data over many years, making it essential that we take stock of how we will ensure our digital research materials have a long life for our own use and the use of our fellow scholars. But this year loving our data takes on an extra sense of urgency as we contemplate the vulnerability of data at a time when not all organizations and agents share that goal of making the results of scholarly endeavor transparent and available.

This year Love Your Data Week encompasses the following daily themes, each dedicated to an important aspect of shepherding your data through the research lifecycle:

• Monday, February 13: Defining Data Quality
• Tuesday, February 14: Documenting, Describing, Defining
• Wednesday, February 15: Good Data Examples
• Thursday, February 16: Finding the Right Data
• Friday, February 17: Rescuing Unloved Data

Nearly one hundred universities, data repositories, and data providers are participating in LYD2017 this year. You’ll find tips and information in conjunction with each day’s theme here on the Data Dispatch. Follow the discussion on Twitter using #LYD17 or #loveyourdata. And this year, we’ve added a full session at week’s end dedicated to prepping and cleaning data. Sign up for “Love Your Data; a Prepping and Cleaning Data Workshop” on Friday, February 17, from 1-3:00 pm.