October 21, 2024
Today, the amount of information available to users is endless, and access to that information is increasingly important. The Civic Switchboard project, spearheaded by SCI faculty members Eleanor “Nora” Mattern, Chelsea Gunn, and Marcia Rapchak, the University Center for Social and Urban Research’s Elizabeth Monk and Robert Gradeck, and the University Library System’s Aaron Brenner, is increasing access through its focus on open civic data, community-related data shared by governments and civic organizations. Civic Switchboard aims to foster collaborations among libraries and local data intermediaries to support democratic and equitable access to data and information.
“Libraries are well-positioned to serve as connectors between community members and community data, and this work is best done as collaboration,” said Mattern. “We see the Civic Switchboard project as bringing visibility to work that libraries are doing in this area through case studies, providing resources and education that helps individual libraries develop civic data roles, and serving as connectors so that library workers doing civic data work can find and engage with one another.”
Civic Switchboard’s efforts began in 2016 from a collaboration between the University Library System (ULS), the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, and the Western Pennsylvania Regional Data Center (WPRDC). WPRDC manages an online portal for public access to government datasets, which sparked inspiration for a new project on open data.
“During the data portal’s pre-launch phase, project manager Robert Gradeck began collaborating with local libraries. This partnership led to outreach and training programs with the public library, while we at ULS contributed to designing the portal’s metadata schema,” said Mattern. “These local collaborations raised intriguing questions: how do library-open data partnerships manifest in other communities? What roles can libraries play in supporting community engagement with open data?”
Since then, the Civic Switchboard team received three grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a federal agency dedicated to funding library and museum initiatives. In 2017, the team developed a guide for library workers interested in civic data roles in their communities.
“We ran workshops that brought together library workers and a local data partner,” said Mattern. “We were also able to make small grant awards to libraries that were interested in working on a civic data project. From these grant awards, we collected case studies in 2019 and 2020, and articulated a set of roles that libraries may play with civic data.”
From 2020-2022, the team developed the Civic Data Education Series.
“The series is a collection of open educational materials primarily designed to be used by library and information science (LIS) instructors as part of graduate-level LIS curriculum,” said Mattern. “I co-collaborated on this project with SCI faculty members Marcia Rapchak, Jacob Biehl, and Matthew Burton.”
In 2023, the team received their third grant and began hosting Civic Switchboard institutes, regional and online institutes for library workers interested in connecting their communities with civic data. They have partnered with collaborators at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Fondren Library at Rice University, the University of Notre Dame, The Leventhal Map & Education Center at Boston Public Library, and Portland State University, which all serve as hosts for the institutes.
Civic Switchboard is making real-world impacts in many libraries, information environments, and communities. Civic Switchboard is increasing access to data, fostering informed and equitable communities across the country.
“Our major goal in the spring is to conceptualize a sustainable community of practice so that individuals interested in and engaged in this work can find and learn from one another,” said Mattern.
Learn more about Civic Switchboard and view the Connecting Libraries and Civic Data guide and Civic Switchboard Guide.
--Alyssa Morales