Analyze Boston’s First Educational Session for Librarians
This past Wednesday, Analyze Boston, Boston’s new open data portal hub, held its first educational session for librarians about the new website. Turnout was excellent for the event as twenty-five librarians from both public and academic libraries attended. Also present at the session were several library and information science students, as well as a graduate student from Emerson College’s Civic Media program. The session was held in the community learning classroom at the Boston Public Library’s main branch on Boylston Street.
During the session, librarians learned how to navigate the new site and search for information that would be helpful during interactions with library patrons. Part of the session consisted of reference scenarios that were connected to specific datasets.
Attendees searched for information within both tabular and geospatial datasets. Attendees explored property assessment, food establishment inspections, and approved building permits, amongst other datasets. Time was also reserved for a question and answer session and interaction between participants.
We were thrilled that the Community Learning Tech lab was filled to capacity for the event, and that even two librarians from the wait list showed up and were given extra chairs in the front of the room. It was helpful for us to hear feedback from librarians about city datasets that they had previously referenced in their work. For example, one librarian said they made use of the CORI Vendor Report dataset when leading employment application training with library patrons. Amongst the academic librarians attending were those who work in the fields of nursing, public health, urban planning, and the geospatial sciences. The session was principally delivered with entry-level to intermediate level data explorers in mind. In closing, we were happy about the the session and look forward to hosting the next open data session for librarians on April 13th!
Visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/analyze-boston-orientation-session-for-librarians-tickets-33341735027 to sign up for the upcoming session!
