The following is information and terms of reference for the library data storytelling project.

All content on this site is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Who is this for?

The project is designed for library staff, supporters, suppliers (e.g. bibliographic data or software solutions who work with library data), and anyone who is interested in telling stories about libraries.

Who runs it?

I (Dave Rowe) am a software developer, and have been working in or around the public library sector for the past 15 years.

During that time I founded Libraries Hacked, a project to promote open data and digital prototypes for public libraries, and have been involved in many community digital projects that have used library data in interesting ways.

Library data storytelling is a project that I’m running in my spare time, to help promote the use of data in libraries.

What does a data story look like?

There are many ways to tell a story using data. This site is designed as a blog that would showcase regular stories as posts. Each post would typically include:

1. A title and description that summarises the story
2. Background context to the data and how it relates to real activities in the library
3. Challenges in the data, and questions that the data might help to answer
4. The story that the data told us such as changing use of library services, or the impact of a new service
5. A beautiful visualisation that helps to tell the story
6. A conclusion that summarises the story, and how it could inform future decisions

The story should be accessible and written for a wide audience. I’ll be happy to work with you to help you tell your story in a way that is engaging and informative. I’d behappy to take all this task if you’d prefer, but I don’t feel that would be rewarding for the staff involved.

Alternatively, you may already have a fully realised story that you’d like to share, in which case I’d be happy to help you publish it on this site.

What are the beneficial outcomes of telling a data story?

The act of looking at data is a powerful way of learning more about how libraries work, and satisfying curiosity about our services. So, there are no fails in this project - even if you don’t end up with a story, you’ll have learned more about your library and the data you hold. This will increase your data literacy, and help make better decisions in the future.

At a wider level we generally do a disservice to libraries by not making the data more accessible and open, and telling the stories held in that data to a wider audience. I believe that is a powerful way to promote libraries, and to help people understand the value of libraries in their communities.

How does it work?

The process of creating a data story is collaborative. It will typically involve the following steps:

1. Initial meeting to discuss the story you want to tell, and ideas for data
2. Time for preliminary actions, signoff processes, arranging time and people to work on the project
3. More formal catchups to discuss progress, and to ensure that any work is on track such as extracting data, cleaning data, and creating visualisations
4. Final writeup of the story, and any follow up actions

The story would then be published on this site, and shared with the wider library community.

How much time will you need to spend on this?

Time is precious, though I believe that doing more varied work with library data will always be productive and rewarding. For anyone contributing a story to this project I’ll do my best to ensure that the time any staff spend is well spent and aids in personal and organisational development.

The exact amount of time will depend on the story you want to tell, and the complexity of the data and any processes to get it. I would suggest timeboxing the work, and catching up on a regular basis to ensure people can work at their own pace. For example, meeting once every couple of weeks for a few months.

Does the data need to be open?

It would be lovely if the stories in this project also included regularly published open datasets that could be used by others to expand on that story.

However, I understand there can be a reluctance to do too much at once! We should at the least describe the data we’re using, how to extract it from relevant systems, and the process used to analyse it. This will help others to replicate the work for themselves.

Data protection and terms of use

It is always important to consider data protection and privacy when working with data. I believe that in the majority of cases data can be open and accessible, and considering this actually helps libraries to be more aware of the sensitive and personal data they hold, and how to protect it.

The data used in the examples on this site is either open data, or data that has been anonymised and aggregated to protect the privacy of individuals. If you have any concerns about the data used on this site, please do get in touch.

For library services and organisations that would like to work on this project, I will never ask for access to personal data, and will always work with you to ensure that the data we use is appropriate and safe. I have experience in working with sensitive data and public data, such as during my time as senior developer at Bath and North East Somerset Council, where I was technical lead in a large scale open data programme across the council.

Before sharing any data we will have a discussion about the data to ensure that it is appropriate and safe to use.

How can I get involved?

If you’re interested in telling a story about your library using data, get in touch.

Long term ambitions

Long term I would love to see a community of library data storytellers, who regularly share their stories, challanges, and experiences with each other. I would be happy to help facilitate this community, and to help you get involved.

I would also love to add physical publishing to this project, such as a newspaper, printed cards, or a published book. Physical publishing can be a great way to reach people who might not be online, and to engage in a different way - plus wouldn’t it be great to have physical copies of visualisations and stories held in libraries?