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.