Civic Data Work

Civic Switchboard Project

Globally, governments and civic organization are publishing data about our communities as open civic data, or data that is freely available for access and reuse. There are important roles for libraries!

The Civic Switchboard project builds on experiences we've had in Pittsburgh, where the University of Pittsburgh Library System, the public libraries, and the Western Pennsylvania Regional Data Center work together. Our partnership demonstrated to us that libraries and library workers are well positioned to serve as civic data intermediaries -- organizations and people who help others to find, understand, and use open civic data.

Funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, our Civic Switchboard project focuses on building the capacity of libraries to serve as civic data intermediaries.

Through this project, we:

  • Held workshops that brought together library workers and civic data intermediaries in their communities to map their civic data ecosystems and identify opportunities for collaboration. Read recaps of the Atlanta and Las Vegas workshops.

  • Provided stipends and support for libraries as they engaged in civic data work in their communities. Read about the projects we funded in 2019 and in 2020.

  • Developed a guide to support libraries and partners as they serve data users, further democratize data, and support equitable access to information.

  • Created a Civic Data Education Series, a collection of learning materials to build civic data literacy skills among library workers

This project involves many wonderful collaborators in Pittsburgh and at libraries and library science programs throughout the United States -- it's been a joy!

Image of a vintage switchboard

Our website shares blog posts about the Civic Switchboard project, a link to the Civic Data Operators Group (a discussion group about libraries and civic data work), and access to project outputs.

Cover of Civic Switchboard guide, reading: "Civic Switchboard: Connecting libraries and community information networks"

Our guide supports libraries and their partners as they serve data users, further democratize data, and support equitable access to information. The guide provides a look at library roles in open civic data work and case studies of libraries carrying out these roles. The guide helps library workers to identify roles that are responsive to their communities.


Text that reads "Civic Data Education Series" next to image of vintage switchboard

Our Series Is modular in nature, with instructional materials (videos, slides, scripts, and activities) focused on building capacity for library participation in their civic data ecosystems. These open educational resources on civic data literacy are designed for faculty in Library and Information Science programs to use in their courses and for library workers to engage with asynchronously or to use for synchronous professional development programming.

Towards a Robust, Open-Source Civic Data Ecosystem

I'm pleased to be a co-PI in a project supported by the National Science Foundation's “Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems” Program. This project focuses on CKAN, the open-source data management platform that supports many government data publishing and transparency initiatives, including Data.gov.

I am working with the Western Pennsylvania Regional Data Center and datHere to engage the many players involved in stewarding and using CKAN -- the CKAN "ecosystem!"

We will:

  • Document CKAN processes and workflows;

  • Visualize participants in the CKAN ecosystem;

  • Research other open-source ecosystems;

  • Engage members of the CKAN ecosystem in interviews and virtual workshops; and

  • Connect with current and potential users in external communities of practice.

Read more about our nascent work.

CKAN logo