Data Reuse Practices and Expectations for Data Resources and Services among Public Library Users

ABSTRACT

Public library users’ expectations of library resources and services related to open data as well as their own estimation of their data literacy skills are examined. Library users were surveyed from nine different Indiana public library communities. Findings suggest that public libraries are viewed as resources for finding data and educational programming for data skills, particularly as it relates to the community context. Additionally, study participants assessed their data skills to be average or slightly above, indicating a foundational knowledge from which to design library resources and sources to meet a community’s data needs. Keywords: open government data, public libraries, data literacy skills, communities, information behaviors

KEYWORDS:

• Public libraries
• open government data
• data literacy skills
• information behaviors
• communities

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services [070717].

Notes on contributors

Andrea Copeland

Andrea Copeland is an Associate Professor at Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing (IUPUI), Department of Library and Information Science. She holds a Ph.D. from Drexel University and M.L.I.S. from Florida State University. Her research focus is public libraries and their relationship with communities and the opportunities for co-creation and collaboration.

Ayoung Yoon

Ayoung Yoon is an Assistant Professor at Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing (IUPUI), Department of Library and Information Science. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and M.S.I. from the University of Michigan. Her research areas include data curation and data sharing/reuse. She is particularly interested in building capacity for constructing infrastructure for data sharing and reuse through proper curation and preservation practices.

Sheng Zhang

Sheng Zhang received a B.S. Degree in Chemistry from Peking university in P.R. China in 1995, and M.S. in Applied Statistics from Department of Mathematics Sciences in Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Indianapolis in 2018. Currently, he is a Ph. D. candidate in Mathematics with focus on Statistics, at Department of Mathematics Sciences in Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Indianapolis.