Developing civic data literacy

What's the need?

• There is an increasing need for people to have data literacy skills for their careers.

• Many people would like to know how to better find and use civic data and, at the same time, understand its context and limitations.

Why the library?

• Your library likely has lots of experience teaching information literacy.

• Your library is in the position to adapt existing services or information literacy curriculum to continue to help people access and make use of civic data.

What you can do:

• Work with local community organizations to develop data literacy and skills training

• Tailor an existing data literacy training toolkit to local needs

• Fold data literacy into workforce development training workshops and programs

• Expand the roles and skill sets of library staff

Inspiration:

• Houston, TX: Fondren Library, Rice University Data Literacy Workshops​

• Queens, NY: Queens Public Library's Data Counts program

• Providence, RI: Providence Public Library's Data Navigators program for teens

Resources you can use:

• Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and the Western Pennsylvania Regional Data Center: Data 101 Toolkit ​

• Data Equity for Main Street: Open Data Curriculum

• MIT Center for Civic Media: Data Therapy​

• Data Pop Alliance: Beyond Data Literacy: Reinventing Community Engagement and Empowerment in the Age of Data ​

• Community Information Now: What’s Needed for a Community to be Good at Using Data?​

• Allied Media: Opening Data Zine ​

• University of Washington Open Data Literacy Project​

• NNIP and Microsoft’s Civic Technology Engagement Group: Data and Tech Training Catalog​