Open Data and Library Services

Open Data
and Library Services.
Are You Ready to Dive In?
05/24/2014 CALA MW Annual Conference
By Jian Anna Xiong
Government Information Librarian/Associate
Professor
Southern Illinois University Carbondale

Outline
 What is open data?
 History of U.S. government open data policies
 Different voices on open data, esp. U.S. government open data
 Related new concepts: big data and linked data
 Library open data service trend

What is Open Data?
 “Open data is data that can be freely used, re-used and
redistributed by anyone - subject only, at most, to the
requirement to attribute and sharealike.” (Source: Open
Data Handbook.)

Milestones of U.S. Government
Open Data Policies
 January 20, 2009: Open Government Initiative
 March 5, 2009: the creation of Data.gov.
 December 8, 2009: U.S. Open Government
Directive
 Related U.S. Federal government data
mandates starting 2011
 May 9, 2013: Open Data Executive Order
 May 22, 2013: Data.gov responded
by launching a new data catalog

Milestones of U.S.
Government
Open Data Policies
o May 9, 2014: White
House. U. S. Open
Data Action Plan.
http://www.whiteho
use.gov/sites/defau
lt/files/microsites/os
tp/us_open_data_a
ction_plan.pdf

Good Sides
 It is required that “every
agency to have
agency.gov/data and
/publications subdomains on
their websites; and set up the
github repository for agencies
to share best practices,
standards, and infrastructure.”
 “Government data has to be
open and machine-readable
by default and the definition of
Information Life Cycle & Open
Data.”
 Transparency and
democratic control
 Improved efficiency of
government services
 New knowledge from
combined data sources
and patterns in large data
volumes”

Concerns
 Ethical issue
 Long term preservation
 Open licenses
 Government agencies’
response time
 Money
 Learning curve and digital
divide

Big Data
 Haseeb Budhani
 How big is considered big
data?
(Source: A Definitive Look At Big Data In 2013 [INFOGRAPHIC]. By Allison Stadd. August 16, 2013.

Linked Data
 Tim Berners-Lee

More Open Data Sets as New Library Reference Resources
 GeoNames
 FOAF
 reegle data
 eagle-i
 Ontobee

Library Services
 First identify the information users and data contributors – who
and why care about open data, big data, linked data?
 Applicants of large Federal grants
 Research centers/labs
 The Large Hadron Collider
 Every business sector: big companies, manufactures, retailers,
health care organizations, sports
 eBay.com
 Facebook
 FICO

Library Services
 Computer science and information technology companies
 Universities
 Politics, government agencies
 The NASA Center
 Library of Congress
(Source: A Definitive Look At Big Data In 2013 [INFOGRAPHIC]. By Allison Stadd. August 16, 2013.

Library Services
 Debbie Rabina (Associate Professor who teaches government
information in Pratt Institute’s library science program)
 James A. Jacobs (co-founder of Free Government
Information and former Data Services Librarian at the University
of California San Diego)
 James R. Jacobs (U.S. Government Information Librarian at
Stanford)
 Jeanne Holm (Evangelist for Data.gov, U.S. General Services
Administration)

Library Open Data Service Trend
 Scholarly Publishing – Open Data
 MIT
 Research Data Services
 Open access and open data @ UW Wisconsin-Madison
 Open access and open data (Colorado State University Libraries)
 Syracuse University Libraries:
http://researchguides.library.syr.edu/dataservices
 Typical services provided

Collect and Access
 30 places to find open data on the web.
http://blog.visual.ly/data-sources/
 Josverwoerd. Data, Data, Data: Thousands of Public
Data Sources. February 28, 2013.
http://blog.bigml.com/2013/02/28/data-data-data-thousands-
of-public-data-sources/

Collect and Access
My favorite research guide
http://libguides.geneseo.edu/data

Data Literacy Instruction
 Workshops on open data, policies and related issues
 Workshops introducing new open data software, new open data
storage options for researchers
 Promote the library open data collections and other services
 Demo/highlight new open data resources, open data portals

Rethink Open Data
 How to Rethink Open Data and Make It Relevant to the
Public. By Miguel Paz.
http://www.computerworlduk.com/in-depth/
applications/3419544/big-data-and-how-library-of-congress-
indexes-all-170-billion-tweets-ever-posted/

Reference
 The Open Data Handbook. http://opendatahandbook.org/
 McCann, Laurenellen. Open Data Policy Guideline. June 29, 2012.
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2012/06/29/open-data-policy-guidelines/
 Schwartz, Meredith. What Governmental Big Data May Mean For Libraries. May
30, 2013. Library Journal. http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2013/05/oa/what-governmental-
big-data-may-mean-for-libraries/#_
 Sunlight Foundation Responds to Open Data Executive Order. Fact Sheet on
Open Data Policy in the U.S. May 9, 2013.
http://sunlightfoundation.com/press/releases/2013/05/09/sunlight-foundation-responds-
open-data-executive-o/
 Online Certificate in Data Science. Indiana university Bloomington.
http://news.iu.edu/releases/iu/2013/11/data-science-program-soic.shtml
 Graduate Programs in Big Data Analytics and Data Science. Last updated May
2, 2014. http://whatsthebigdata.com/2012/08/09/graduate-programs-in-big-data-
and-data-science/

Open Data and Library Services

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