# Creating civic data

**What's the need?**

* As you advocate for sharing data, your library could set an example by sharing it yourself.
* Data about your library can help provide insight into your community.
* Historic information that could be used as data is often held in library collections, but not in machine-readable form.
* People want to collect and create data themselves but often need support. Not everyone has specialized tools (such as air quality monitors) to aid in data collection. 

**Why the library?**  

* Your library likely collects data for annual reporting that could also be of interest to the public. 
* Libraries have a long tradition of reformatting materials to support different forms of use, including microfilming and digitizing collections. Creating datasets from collections is a continuation of this work.
* Libraries have the infrastructure for loaning equipment (like air quality monitors) and can reach a broad and diverse audience.

**What you can do:**

* [Create and publish](https://data.wprdc.org/dataset/a-community-profile-of-pittsburgh-neighborhoods-1974) machine-readable datasets from library collections, resources, or operational data
* Loan equipment for citizen science data collection 

**Inspiration:**

* New York, NY: [Brooklyn Public Library Open Data](https://data.cityofnewyork.us/browse?Dataset-Information_Agency=Brooklyn+Public+Library+%28BPL%29) 
* Pittsburgh, PA: [Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Open Data](https://data.wprdc.org/dataset/clp-public-wifi)  
* Chattanooga, TN: [Chattanooga Public Library Open Data](https://internal.chattadata.org/Education/Library-Circulation/t6h3-v5ms) 
* Phoenix, AZ: “[Arizona State to Partner with Public Libraries on Citizen Science](http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2017/10/academic-libraries/arizona-state-partner-public-libraries-citizen-science/#_).” by Lisa Peet, *Library Journal*, October 26, 2017.
* San Diego, CA: “[San Diego PL Enlists Citizen Scientists as Bug Collectors](https://www.libraryjournal.com/?detailStory=san-diego-pl-enlists-citizen-scientists-bug-collectors).”  by Lisa Peet, *Library Journal*, April 8, 2018. 

**Resources you can use:**

* Always Already Computational - Collections as Data**:** This project has many resources and examples to inspire considering library collections as/containing data. A good starting place is their ["50 Things" you can do list](https://collectionsasdata.github.io/fiftythings/). 
* SciStarter. "[Calling all Librarians: Citizen Science Day 2019 Invitation](https://blog.scistarter.com/2019/01/citizen-science-day-2019-invitation/)"