Guest Post: Data Literacy for Community Action
Today's guest post is from Emily Zoe Mann, a research and instruction librarian at the University of South Florida Libraries. Read on to learn more about an exciting data literacy initiative she has spearheaded!
Launched in 2024, Data Literacy for Community Action (DLCA) is a collaborative project created to reduce fears and anxiety around data. It's an academic library-led, community data literacy program aiming to provide accessible data literacy instruction to community members. While the definition of ‘data literacy’ may change depending on the discipline, to me, data literacy means being able to understand, find, and use data. Data is a building block of information, and librarians know how to teach information.
As a collaboration between University of South Florida Libraries, The Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg, and the St. Petersburg public library system, DCLA provides data literacy through in-person and online workshops, online self-directed classes, and online materials. While originally intended for non-profit groups and interested citizens we have also seen extensive use from undergraduate students and undergraduate instructors.
Our first two self-paced courses Data is for Everyone and Finding Reliable Data are available now: https://guides.lib.usf.edu/DLCA/classes. The classes are open to everyone and take about an hour to complete, they include videos, datasets, and easy to digest information.
Demystifying data and making it accessible for everyone is a small part of data literacy but it’s one way to take the fear out of working with data. The Data Rescue Project has highlighted that public data is a public good, and DLCA aims to create a public population that is comfortable understanding, finding, and using data to create change in their own communities.
Interested in learning more about DLCA? Feel free to reach out to me at ezmann@usf.edu.
