Book excerpt: Since the National Science Foundation joined the National Institutes of Health in requiring that grant proposals include a data management plan, academic librarians have been inundated with related requests from faculty and campus-based grant consulting offices. Data management is a new service area for many library staff, requiring careful planning and implementation. This guide offers a start-to-finish primer on understanding, building, and maintaining a data management service, showing another way the academic library can be invaluable to researchers. Krier and Strasser of the California Digital Library guide readers through every step of a data management plan by Offering convincing arguments to persuade researchers to create a data management plan, with advice on collaborating with them Laying out all the foundations of starting a service, complete with sample data librarian job descriptions and data management plans Providing tips for conducting successful data management interviews Leading readers through making decisions about repositories and other infrastructure Addressing sensitive questions such as ownership, intellectual property, sharing and access, metadata, and preservation This LITA guide will help academic librarians work with researchers, faculty, and other stakeholders to effectively organize, preserve, and provide access to research data.