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 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
Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Open Data
Chattanooga, TN: Chattanooga Public Library Open Data
Phoenix, AZ: “Arizona State to Partner with Public Libraries on Citizen Science.” by Lisa Peet, Library Journal, October 26, 2017.
San Diego, CA: “San Diego PL Enlists Citizen Scientists as 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.
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