Civic Switchboard Guide
  • Introduction
  • About
  • Context and Concepts
    • An incredibly condensed look at the development of open civic data in the United States
    • Ways of thinking about data: Open data, civic data
    • Defining a data intermediary
    • Where do libraries fit in?
    • Selected Resources
  • Engaging Partners
    • Building libraries into civic data partnerships
    • Finding partners in your ecosystem
    • Common barriers to getting started
    • Selected Resources
  • Understanding Your Ecosystem
    • Mapping your Ecosystem
    • Measuring Health and Capacity
    • Understanding Community Data Needs
    • Selected Resources
  • Library Roles
    • Connecting data users
    • Connecting data producers
    • Showing the importance of civic data
    • Developing civic data literacy
    • Advocating for ethical, responsible, and accessible civic data
    • Making civic data more usable
    • Providing expertise on data management
    • Creating civic data
    • Using civic data
    • Publishing civic data
    • Archiving civic data
    • Increasing the library's capacity to do all of the above
    • Selected Resources
  • Maintaining Momentum
    • Finding resources to support civic data work
    • Support networks and communities of practice
    • Institutionalizing
    • Selected Resources
  • Case Studies 2019
    • Alaska State Library, Juneau, AK
    • Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Library, Charlotte, NC
    • Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston, TX
    • Pioneer Library System, Ontario County, NY
    • Providence Public Library, Providence, RI
    • Queens Public Library, Queens, NY
    • Robert L. Bogomolny Library at the University of Baltimore, MD
    • Saint Paul Public Library, St. Paul, MN
    • Western New York Library Resources Council, Western NY
  • Case Studies 2020
    • The School of Library and Information Sciences Library at NCCU, Durham, NC
    • The University of Chicago Library’s Center for Digital Scholarship, Chicago, IL
    • Indianapolis Public Library, Indianapolis, IN
    • Spokane Public Library, Spokane, WA
    • St. Joseph County Public Library, South Bend, IN
  • Additional Resources
    • Civic Switchboard Workshop Materials
    • Open Data
    • Data Literacies
    • Partnerships and Community-Building
    • Library Roles in Civic Data Ecosystems
    • Guidelines for Creating Open Educational Resources
    • Archiving and Preservation of Civic and Government Data
    • Glossary
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  1. Library Roles

Creating civic data

PreviousProviding expertise on data managementNextUsing civic data

Last updated 5 years ago

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:

  • machine-readable datasets from library collections, resources, or operational data

  • Loan equipment for citizen science data collection

Inspiration:

  • New York, NY:

  • Pittsburgh, PA:

  • Chattanooga, TN:

  • Phoenix, AZ: “.” by Lisa Peet, Library Journal, October 26, 2017.

  • San Diego, CA: “.” 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 .

SciStarter. ""

Create and publish
Brooklyn Public Library Open Data
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Open Data
Chattanooga Public Library Open Data
Arizona State to Partner with Public Libraries on Citizen Science
San Diego PL Enlists Citizen Scientists as Bug Collectors
"50 Things" you can do list
Calling all Librarians: Citizen Science Day 2019 Invitation