New articles: data literacy in community and formal education

When checking for yesterday's post on the Library Trends webinar, I realised it was worth highlighting all the articles in that Library Trends data literacy issue (volume 74, number 3, 2026, open access). The contents page is at https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/56412 
- Teaching Data Literacy in a Distrustful Environment: The Role of Critical Data Studies by Julia Bauder 
- Empowering Immigrant Library Users Through Personal Data Literacy Programming in Public Libraries by Hayley Park, Negeen Aghassibake 
- A Concept Analysis of Community Data Literacy by Amanda S. Hovious
- The Value of Data Literacy: Insights from Community College Students by Jeonghyun Kim, Brady Lund, Lingzi Hong 
- Fostering Data Literacy by Bridging Interdisciplinary Divides: Three Perspectives on Data Literacy Support at the University Level by Charlotte Kiger Price, Emma Slayton, Di Yoong 
- Not Another Boot Camp: Toward an Inclusive Computational Pedagogy by Dolsy Smith, Daphna Atias, Emily Blumenthal, Alex Boyd, Madeline Doering, Katelyn Morgan, Marcus Peerman, Robin Pokorski, Max Turer 
- Data Curation as Data Literacy Education: Grad’s Declassified Data Survival Guide by Summer Mengarelli, Mikala Narlock 
- Fostering Civic Data Literacy in Libraries: The Civic Switchboard Project by Eleanor Mattern, Marcia Rapchak, Chelsea Gunn, Aaron Brenner, Liz Monk, Robert Gradeck 
- Navigating Food Insecurity, Many Data Points at a Time: A Case Study of Georgia State University Library’s Public Interest Data Literacy Learning Lab Course by Halley E. M. Riley, Ashley Rockwell, Mandy Swygart-Hobaugh 
- Evolving Landscape of Data Education in Library and Information Science Programs: A Content Analysis of American Library Association–Accredited Curricula by Kaypounyers “Kay P” Maye, Amy C. Schuler, Chelsea H. Barrett, Ryan T. Hedrick
Photo by Sheila Webber: borage and spot the ladybird, March 2026

Recordings: Data Literacy for Community College

Recordings from the 2nd webinar series (held February 2026) which forms part of the University of North Texas' (USA) Data literacy for community college project are available. This series had that title Building Data Literacy in Practice: Tools, Lessons, and Strategies, and the webinars were on: Understanding Data and Data Sources; Making Data Insightful and Actionable; and Managing Data Ethically and Responsibly. 
Go to https://ci.unt.edu/dlcc/webinars/webinar-recordings.html and scroll down the page (the series 1 webinars on From Principles to Practice: Data Literacy in Academic Libraries, held in 2025, are linked at the top of the page). 
From my quick scan of the slides, these presentations look useful to my own teaching and students e.g. Making Data Insightful and Actionable goes from the need to formulate a meaningful question, through data collection and analysis to presentation (with the focus on quantitative data).
Photo by Sheila Webber: last snowdrops (in that I will move on from snowdrop photos now), February 2026

Educational Futures on Social Media #ECIL2025

The next liveblog from me (Sheila) the ECIL conference in Bamberg is Educational Futures on Social Media presented by Stig Børsen Hansen, Martin Rehm, and co-authored with Tove Faber Frandsen (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark). As this is a liveblog it is just my impression of what was said.
First they looked at what prediction of the future can involve, where you can design scenarios for the future, but also there are moods or feelings about the future (e.g. people feeling the future is doomed).
Then they moved on to discuss Futures Literacy (see https://www.unesco.org/en/futures-literacy/about) you can look at technologies or consult industries to predict the future, but these approaches can miss out groups and the neccessary attitudes for future literacy.
Coming to the question of how to study futures. Studies are often based on big data analysis, but also you can use more qualitative methods. The presenters wanted to focus on moods and feelings because there are both pessemistic and optimistic feelings about tech, and also the idea of "futurelessness" has been identified (with feelings of anger, depression, hopelessness).
One research question was - to what extent can we find collective feeings about education on X. They  did this by using hashtags such as #futureoflearning July 22-November 23. They used NLP (Natural Language Processing) to do sentiment analysis and opinion mining and also used Social Network Analysis (SNA).
They discovered that people talk mostly about the present, next most about the past and least about the future. Anxiety, anger and a bit of sadness drive the negative side. Delving more deeply shows the nuance e.g. anger about less funding to school libraries currently, anxiety about the future, but also constructive discourse about what the future could look like. From the SNA, negative feelings about the future of education had gathered a larger following, but you can also discern the conversation under this.
They concluded that this use of data science also can be used to include and discover creative minorities, that are drowned out in the bigger discussion, and (for example) enable them to connect with each other or promote themselves better.
Photo by Sheila Webber: courtyard of museum building, Bamberg, September 2025

Book: Dialogues in Data Power

Open access book:
Jarke, J. & Bates, J. (Eds.). (2024). Dialogues in Data Power Shifting Response-abilities in a Datafied World. Bristol University Press. ISBN: 9781529238327 https://doi.org/10.51952/9781529238327
Chapters debating aspects of data subjects, data power, data colonialism, data studies etc.
Open access at https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/edcollbook-oa/book/9781529238327/9781529238327.xml
Photo by Sheila Webber: blossom and new leaves against the sky, April 2025

Youth Data Literacy

The Pratt Institute, USA, received a US National Science Foundation award to develop resources to support Youth Data Literacy, with involvement from the young people "for use in after-school STEM programs at the public library". The resources include a Youthy Activity Guide, and results of a survey for how teen like to learn. https://sites.google.com/pratt.edu/data-activism-for-youth/home?authuser=0

Data literacy articles

All from Information and Learning Sciences (priced publication):
- Höper, L. and Schulte, C. (2024). The data awareness framework as part of data literacies in K-12 education. Information and Learning Sciences, 125(7/8), 491-512. https://doi.org/10.1108/ILS-06-2023-0075
- Oh, S. and Mon, L. (2024). Community-based learning and data literacy: the role of the public library. Information and Learning Sciences, 125(7/8), 456-474. https://doi.org/10.1108/ILS-06-2023-0078
and numerous articles in two special issues:
Perspectives on Data Literacies Part 1 https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/2398-5348/vol/125/iss/3/4 and
Part 2 https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/2398-5348/vol/125/iss/5/6Photo by Sheila Webber: autumn, September 2024

New articles on data literacy

The journal Information and Learning Sciences (hybrid as regards open access) has two special issues focusing on Perspectives on Data Literacies Volume 125 Issue 3/4 (2024) includes
- Promoting students’ informal inferential reasoning through arts-integrated data literacy education by Camillia Matuk et al.
- Exploring alternative discourses about datafication in a speculative youth participatory action research curriculum by Ezequiel Aleman
- Using network visualizations to engage elementary students in locally relevant data literacy by Mengxi Zhou et al
- Community college students’ self-assessment of data literacy: exploring differences amongst demographic, academic, and career characteristics by Sarah Amber Evans et al.
- Teen-adult interactions during the co-design of data literacy activities for the public library: insights from a natural language processing analysis of linguistic patterns by Leanne Bowler et al.
- Critical datafication literacy: a framework for educating about datafication by Ina Sander
Go to https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/2398-5348/vol/125/iss/3/4 

Volume 125 Issue 5/6 (2024) includes
- A critical (theory) data literacy: tales from the field by Annette Markham and Riccardo Pronzato
- Teaching data storytelling as data literacy by Kate McDowell and Matthew J. Turk
- Orienting privacy literacy toward social change by Priya C. Kumar
- In my opinion, the TOS… Situating personal data literacy interventions by Juliana Elisa Raffaghelli et al
- Data literacy education through university-industry collaboration by Eylem Taş
- Data literacy in the new EU DigComp 2.2 framework how DigComp defines competences on artificial intelligence, internet of things and data by Leo Van Audenhove et al.
Go to https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/2398-5348/vol/125/iss/5/6

Photo by Sheila Webber of a felled tree trunk in Stanley Park, Vancouver, Canada, May 2024: big number of rings to count!

Data Literacy with, for, and by Youth

An interesting project that was mentioned at the ASIS&T conference that took place earlier this week is Data Literacy with, for, and by Youth which has produced some resources that can be used in developing people's data literacy. Young people were involved in co-designing them. You can download the materials in one pdf, or as individual sheets. They cover topics such as surveillance, algorithms and data privacy https://sites.google.com/pratt.edu/data-activism-for-youth/home

Photo by Sheila Webber: Weston Park, October 2021

Civic data literacy

The Civic Switchboard Data Literacy project is an (US) IMLS-funded project, part of the larger Civic Switchboard project. "This project will build on the  project’s exploration of civic data roles for libraries and will develop instructional materials to prepare MLIS students and current library workers for civic data work." As part of this they have a short survey "that will help us to better the civic data knowledge and needs of librarians and the extent to which civic data services are implemented in your workplaces."  This survey is available here: https://pitt.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5gmyO3Yh4d2SkGF

The Civic Switchboard Guide ("a living document designed to help libraries become more engaged in their local civic data ecosystems") is here https://civic-switchboard.gitbook.io/guide/  . It has sections on library roles, engaging partners etc. and some examples from US academic and public libraries.

Photo by Sheila Webber: birch twigs and snowy pavement, February 2021

New articles: reflecting on IL instruction; librarians as teachers; flipped classroom; copyright; learner confidence; data literacy; IL design

There is a new issue of the open-access Journal of Information Literacy (volume 15 issue 1). The articles and project reports are: 

- Critical discourse analysis as a reflection tool for information literacy instruction by Devina Dandar, Sajni Lacey
- Librarians’ development as teachers by Andrea Baer
- Copyright Dough by Hannah Pyman, Katrine Sundsbø
- A flipped classroom approach to teaching search techniques for systematic reviews to encourage active learning by Karen Poole
- Teaching a one-credit course on data literacy and data visualisation by Tatiana Usova, Robert Laws
- Evaluating confidence in information literacy by David Bedford
- Information-Wise by Jaro Pichel, Barend Last, Julie de Ronde, Alicja Garbaciak, Henrietta Hazen, Stefan Jongen
Go to https://ojs.lboro.ac.uk/JIL/issue/view/223   

Photo by Sheila Webber: ex-Xmas trees of South London, January 2021

Recent articles: teaching incarcerated students; policy literacies; LibGuides; Forestry students; IL in STEM

The latest issue of open access journal College and Research Libraries News (vol 81 issue 4) is available. It includes:
- The Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education (in prison): Using the frames to teach incarcerated students by Clare Kuntz Balcer
- Big data gets big help: Law and policy literacies for text data mining by Kyle Courtney, Rachael Samberg, Timothy Vollmer
- LibGuides Groups in practice: Building a partnership between an academic library and an information studies school by Courtney Hoffner, Antonia Osuna-Garcia
Go to https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/issue/view/1577/showToc

Also I don't think I covered the previous issue (vol 81 no 3). That included:
- Instructional design: Resources for online learning by Laura A. Sheets
- Taking root: Librarians help new Forestry students create a learning community by Erica Lopez, Tina Oswald
- Critical appraisal: The key to unlocking information literacy in the STEM disciplines by Kathryn Mercer, Kari D. Weaver, Rachel Figueiredo, Caitlin Carter
Go to https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/issue/view/1574/showToc
Photo by Sheila Webber: cherry blossom and daisies, April 2020

Digital inequalities #infolit @InfoSchoolSheff

Simeon Yates from Liverpool University gave a talk in the Information School today, on digital inequalities and his research in this area over the years (the photo of the talk is taken with some arty setting on my iPad). Yates referred to Bourdieu's ideas as providing a useful way of looking at these issues (notably the ideas of cultural, economic and social capital). He was no longer keen on the concept of "digital capital". In his talk he presented some of the analysis he and his colleagues have done, using some of their own research data, but also using open data e.g. from Ofcom, Pew Research Center. One of the key points was the correlation between lower class / economic status and limited or no use of the internet. Another interesting point was how digital skills don't necessarily transfer from the everyday context to the work context (e.g. because everyday use is very focused on a few applications on a smartphone - this issue also came out of Ofcom research that I blogged a while back).
His academia.edu page is here https://liverpool.academia.edu/SYates and a current project is Me and My Big Data – Developing Citizens’ Data Literacies https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/humanities-and-social-sciences/research/research-themes/centre-for-digital-humanities/projects/big-data/

New articles on #dataliteracy

An interesting issue of the open access journal Journal of Community Informatics (Vol 12, No 3 (2016) focuses on Data Literacy. Articles include:
Introduction: Data Literacy - What is it and how can we make it happen? Mark Frank, Johanna Walker, Judie Attard, Alan Tygel
- Creating an Understanding of Data Literacy for a Data-driven Society Annika Wolff, Daniel Gooch, Jose J. Cavero Montaner, Umar Rashid, Gerd Kortuem
- Data Literacy defined pro populo David Crusoe (in case you are interested he defines data literacy as: "Data literacy is the knowledge of what data are, how they are collected, analyzed, visualized
and shared, and is the understanding of how data are applied for benefit or detriment, within
the cultural context of security and privacy." p.38)
- Data literacy conceptions, community capabilities Paul Matthews
- Urban Data in the primary classroom: bringing data literacy to the UK curriculum Annika Wolff, Jose J Cavero Montaner, Gerd Kortuem
- Contributions of Paulo Freire for a Critical Data Literacy: a Popular Education Approach Alan Freihof Tygel, Rosana Kirsch
- DataBasic: Design Principles, Tools and Activities for Data Literacy Learners Catherine D'Ignazio, Rahul Bhargava
- Perceptions of ICT use in rural Brazil: Factors that impact appropriation among marginalized communities Paola Prado, J. Alejandro Tirado-Alcaraz, Mauro Araújo Câmara
- Graphical Perception of Value Distributions: An Evaluation of Non-Expert Viewers' Data Literacy Arkaitz Zubiaga, Brian Mac Namee
- Some Key Challenges for Data Literacy Mark Frank, Johanna Walker
In addition I was interested in the article: Granny gets smarter but Junior hardly notices (report on a survey that students did on elders' mobile phone use, in South Africa) Isabella Margarethe Venter, Karen Renaud, Renette Blignaut
http://www.ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/issue/view/59
Photo by Sheila Webber: Hogwarts Express carriage. Disconcertingly, this carriage is evidently a real former railway carriage, exactly like ones I used to commute in in the 1980/90s, November 2016.

Storify and copyright; Wayback and big data bias

A couple of items I just happened across:

1) Leetaru, K. (2015, November 16). How much of the internet does the wayback machine really archive? Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2015/11/16/how-much-of-the-internet-does-the-wayback-machine-really-archive/
Results of a study of the number of web pages archived from sites by that useful (but, it turns out, in some ways, arbitrary) site, the Internet Archive. A sound bite that sprang out at me was
"the “big data” era is unfortunately being increasingly defined by headline-grabbing results computed from datasets being plucked off the shelf with little attempt to understand their inner biases."

2) Watson, I. (2015, November 13). Storify, embedded images and copyright. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/storify-embedded-images-copyright-ian-watson
A short post on Linked-In, but raising the issue of copyright of images on Storify, with the cautionary tale of the Tron Theartre in Glasgow. Ian (currently a knowledge manager) used to manage a newspaper library, and has expertise in this area.
Photo by Sheila Webber: a pleasant coffee, chocolates and a glass of Vana Tallinn, in Tallinn, October 2015