1. 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
2. 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
3. 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.)
4. 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
5. 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
6. 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”
7. Concerns
Ethical issue
Long term preservation
Open licenses
Government agencies’
response time
Money
Learning curve and digital
divide
8. 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.
10. More Open Data Sets as New Library Reference Resources
GeoNames
FOAF
reegle data
eagle-i
Ontobee
11. 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
12. 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.
13. 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)
14. 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
15. 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/
16. Collect and Access
My favorite research guide
http://libguides.geneseo.edu/data
17. 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
18. 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/
19. 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/