How to "Speak Data": Librarians as Public Data Ambassadors

Description: Data has become central to many aspects of civic life - governments run open data portals, organizations release public datasets, newspapers publish data-driven stories. How can librarians navigate this all more effectively? How can you help library patrons learn to use what they find in these data resources? Librarians can play an impactful role as "data ambassadors", assisting their communities in finding and using data as part of their life as citizens. Join Prof. Bhargava for an interactive virtual workshop that will introduce participatory approaches to building your ability to "speak data". You'll leave the session with more confidence in your own ability to work with data, a language for talking about the role data can play in civic engagement, and experience with playful activities you can run yourself to build data literacy with your colleagues or patrons.

Speaker: Rahul Bhargava leads hands-on data workshops around the world. His Data Therapy workshops have been bringing people together around data with engaging activities for over 10 years. Rahul is co-creator of the Data Culture Project, which helps individuals and organizations build their data capacity in creative ways. He combines a background in interactive robotics, education, and effective data presentation to build creative and playful activities that introduce data literacy in appropriate ways to a variety of audiences. Rahul is an Assistant Professor in Journalism and Art + Design at Northeastern University, where he leads the Data Culture Group. He is an educator, technologist, drummer, and father. Twitter: @rahulbot