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

Providing expertise on data management

PreviousMaking civic data more usableNextCreating civic data

Last updated 5 years ago

What's the need?

  • Many civic organizations produce data and need support with managing and versioning files, standardizing data-related practices, addressing data privacy, determining retention of data, sharing data appropriately, and more.

  • Many data publishers (such as managers of open data portals) need support with metadata and vocabularies, format standards, technical infrastructure strategies, and more.

  • Many data users need strategies for personal data practices, including naming, labeling, storage, backups, deleting, and more.

Why the library?

  • Library workers have the skills to provide data management and data hosting services to organizations that may not otherwise have internal capacity to treat their data as an asset.

What you can do:

  • Consult with data producers, publishers, and users on:

    • Metadata used for datasets and data portals

    • Technical infrastructure for repositories

    • Data management planning

    • Protecting privacy when data sharing

Inspiration:

  • Pittsburgh, PA: metadata collaboration

Resources you can use:

  • Project Open Data.

  • World Wide Web Consortium.

  • World-Wide Web Consortium.

  • Force11:

  • Green, B., Cunningham, G., Ekblaw, A., & Kominers, P. (2017). . SSRN Electronic Journal

  • Data SF

  • Borgman, Christine (2018). . Berkeley Technology Law Journal, 33:2, 365-412

University of Pittsburgh Library System and Western PA Regional Data Center
Project Open Data Metadata Schema
Data Catalog Vocabulary (DCAT)
Data on the Web Best Practices
The FAIR Data Principles
Open Data Privacy
4 Steps to Manage Privacy and De-Identification for your Open Data Program
Open Data, Grey Data, and Stewardship: Universities at the Privacy Frontier