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
Powered by GitBook
On this page
  1. Library Roles

Selected Resources

PreviousIncreasing the library's capacity to do all of the aboveNextMaintaining Momentum

Last updated 5 years ago

On this page, we've selected and described some resources that we think are relevant to the "Library Roles" section.

Bertot, J. C., Butler, B. S., & Travis, D. M. (2014). Local Big Data: The Role of Libraries in Building Community Data Infrastructures. Proceedings of the 15th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research, ACM. pp. 17–23.

This paper considers essential infrastructure supporting a local information and data program and uses a case study approach to investigate roles for libraries in supporting the infrastructure and community data initiatives. Bertot, Butler, and Travis conduct 44 interviews in one mid-sized US city to understand data needs in community organizations and capacity within the library to engage in open data work.

Robinson, P., & Mather, L. W. (2017). Open Data Community Maturity: Libraries as Civic Infomediaries. Journal of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association, volume 28, pp. 31-38.

Robinson and Mather describe an alignment between the mission of a public library and local government’s efforts to open data. They make the case that public libraries are well-positioned to serve as “civic data informediaries,” or “a person or organization that connects community members with open data so that public value can be derived from the data” (p. 31). Robinson and Mather’s article highlights examples of public libraries acting as civic infomediaries, including the and .

NNIP and (2016). Data and Tech Training Catalog.

For libraries interested in offering data training, the NNIP and Microsoft's Civic Technology Engagement Group launched a catalog of existing training materials that organizations have developed. You'll find a range of training resources here, including introductions to data, data visualization, data analysis using Excel and R, and GIS and mapping materials.

https://doi.org/10.1145/2612733.2612762
http://www.urisa.org/clientuploads/directory/Documents/Journal/Vol28_final.pdf
Edmonton Public Library
Chattanooga Public Library
Microsoft’s Civic Technology Engagement Group
https://www.neighborhoodindicators.org/data-tech/training