“Where’s the data?” is the theme for International Love Data Week, February 9 to 13. This year, we have a very special Love Data Week planned because we are also celebrating the 5-year anniversary of Dinsdale Family Learning Commons.
The question, “where’s the data?”, resonates in a few ways. It’s the first question to ask when assessing a novel research claim. It’s a practical question – where can I access and reuse the data? It’s a policy question: where are the data that government agencies are responsible for providing and stewarding? And it’s an infrastructure question: are these data findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR)?
During Love Data Week, and all year round, we help people answer that question, by helping them find, evaluate, analyze, protect, and share research data.
On February 9, we’re kicking off our Dinsdale festivities with a poster session scavenger hunt. Tour Dinsdale, find all nine posters that reveal the inner workings of University Libraries, and win some sweet swag. Everyone who completes the scavenger hunt by noon on Friday, February 13, will also be entered into a drawing to win a coveted University Libraries sweatshirt.
The posters will be on display all week long, along with a slide show of archival images of the original C. Y. Thompson Library building and photos of its renovation into the Dinsdale Family Learning Commons. We’ll cap the week with celebratory cake and snacks from 12:30 to 3:00 pm on Friday.
Another way we’re celebrating Dinsdale and data is with a slate of data-related workshops that start this week. The topics include geospatial data, Storymaps, and using SANDY, our research data repository. We continue next week with research data management, Survey123, and comprehensive searching workshops to boost your skills in finding, managing, and analyzing research data.
We look forward to seeing you next week at Dinsdale!