# Making civic data more usable

**What's the need?**

* Data is often available but with barriers to use. Barriers include (but are not limited to) finding, obtaining, understanding, aggregating, applying, and contextualizing data.
* Data providers and intermediaries need insight from users to help prioritize open datasets and tool development.  

**Why the library?**  

* Your library has always helped to make existing information more usable and useful to its communities. 
* Library workers are uniquely positioned to know, communicate, and advocate for the information needs of their communities. 
* Library workers have expertise around the user experience of digital information. How do users prefer to search? To browse? To evaluate results for relevance? To download and use digital content? 

**What your library can do:**

* Author[ data user guides](http://www.wprdc.org/data-user-guides/) for specific datasets or on broader topics.
* Create views of data that meet specific needs, for user groups, social justice organizations. One example might be creating analog presentations of data for communities that are non-digital. 
* Partner with civic data initiatives to gather user feedback for improved services

**Inspiration:**

* Pittsburgh, PA: Western Pennsylvania Regional Data Center's [Data User Guides](http://www.wprdc.org/data-user-guides/)
* Somerville, MA: Tufts’s Hirsch Health Science Library guide, [Health Data and Statistics](https://researchguides.library.tufts.edu/c.php?g=249144\&p=1658857)
* Durham, NC: Duke University Library's guide,  [US Economic Data,](https://guides.library.duke.edu/c.php?g=289989\&p=1932033) see "Local areas" for treatment of regional civic data
* Boston, MA: Cataloguing Open Data: [Open Data to Open Knowledge](https://knightfoundation.org/grants/201550349/)

**Resources you can use:**

* Robinson, P., & Mather, L. W. (2017). [Open Data Community Maturity: Libraries as Civic Infomediaries](http://www.urisa.org/clientuploads/directory/Documents/Journal/Vol28_final.pdf). *Journal of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association*, volume 28.