# Connecting data users

**What's the need?**

* Data users, even when living in the same region, are often separated. Users may be facing similar problems and may have solutions or complementary expertise to share.
* Together, data users can be stronger advocates for social change, for improving civic data, for making additional data available, and for the creation of tools to make data more useful.
* In-person connections can be fun and help strengthen local networks.

**Why the library?**  

* Your library is already a space for convening and connecting individuals to information.  
* Your library has the infrastructure and skills to build community around civic data. 

**What you can do:**

* Attend or host a civic data community event like a Data Day or a coding challenge 
* Promote civic data initiatives through the library's social media, events, and calendars
* Facilitate a local data user group around a specific dataset or topic (ex. housing data, environmental data)
* Host recurring data literacy trainings and workshops

**Inspiration:**

* Pittsburgh, PA: [Pittsburgh's Data Day: Using Civic Data to Spark Hands-on Community Engagement](https://www.livingcities.org/blog/1226-pittsburgh-s-data-day-using-civic-data-to-spark-hands-on-community-engagement)
* New York, NY: [NYC Open Data Event Calendar](https://www.open-data.nyc)
* Chapel Hill, NC: Chapel Hill Public Library's [ Open Data Hackathon](https://chapelhillpubliclibrary.org/eventscalendar/open-data-hackathon/)
* Ottawa, ON: Open Data Ottawa's [Open Data Book Club](https://opendataottawa.tumblr.com/post/97848763391/open-data-book-club)
* Cleveland, OH: [Data Days Cleveland](https://www.datadayscle.org/)
* Baltimore, MD: [Baltimore Data Day](https://bniajfi.org/data_day/)

**Resources you can use:**

* Detroit Digital Justice Coalition: [Discovering Technology](https://alliedmedia.org/ddjc/discotech) ("DiscoTech"): From that page, see the "How to DiscoTech" zine for detailed principles and specific guidance!
* Roadmap to Informed Communities / Sunlight Foundation. “[Community Data Dialogues: Learn how to host events to engage non-technical audiences on open data](https://communities.sunlightfoundation.com/action/data-dialogues/)” 
* Murray, Brittany, Elsa Falkenburger, and Priya Saxena. “[Data Walks: An Innovative Way to Share Data with Communities.](https://www.urban.org/research/publication/data-walks-innovative-way-share-data-communities)” Urban Institute, June 4, 2016. 
* Schlosser, Dan. “[When ‘Awesome’ Is Isolating: Making Hackathons Accessible.](http://static.schlosser.io/hackcon.pdf)”


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://civic-switchboard.gitbook.io/guide/library-roles/connecting-data-users.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.