Publishing civic data

What's the need?
Many municipalities and regions have open data to share but need an institution to manage or coordinate a centralized data collection.
Why the library?  
Libraries are trusted stewards of information and library workers have considerable expertise in managing data and protecting privacy.
Libraries are leading many digital inclusion and data literacy efforts in their communities. 
As the priorities of elected officials change, having a third-party entity like a library host data from government organizations and other partners can also help to sustain community data initiatives. 
What you can do:
Publish available non-sensitive public information (ex. Census data) about your community 
Build a prototype program using cloud-based data storage services like Dropbox, Box, or Google Drive to host data
Manage a civic data portal
Inspiration:
Chattanooga, TN: Open Data portal hosted by the public library
Albuquerque, NM: Open Data infrastructure using existing server infrastructure and simple protocols like FTP 
Resources you can use:
Civic Switchboard Project. (2019). 8 Considerations for Libraries That Want to Host Open Data .
Linda Poon. (2019) “Should Libraries Be the Keepers of Their Cities’ Public Data?” CityLab.
Sullivan, K. (2018). Can Libraries Accelerate Local Open Data Publishing? Medium post.
Using civic data
Archiving civic data
Last modified 3yr ago