Critical Data Storytelling
eLearning
Description
How can library Boards/Trustees, Friends of the Library, and library Foundations use data stories to build support and resilience? Drawing on her book Critical Data Storytelling for Libraries and the IMLS Data Storytelling Toolkit, Dr. Kate McDowell will share ethical, impactful approaches for crafting compelling narratives. Learn to reach diverse audiences, leverage powerful story structures, and build resilience in the face of funding cuts and censorship. This session supports library advocates in any role in telling the stories of why libraries and other public information institutions matter.
Speaker
Dr. Kate McDowell’s interdisciplinary work examines how storytelling plays a vital role in humanizing data analysis and communication. She focuses on storytelling as information research and how the history of library storytelling informs data storytelling. Her article “Storytelling Wisdom: Story, information, and DIKW” theorizes storytelling as a fundamental information form. She leads the Data Storytelling Toolkit for Librarians project to equip libraries with narrative tools for data-informed advocacy, which has been used by over 5,000 librarians in over 50 countries so far. As of 2024, she had delivered over a dozen keynotes on her work to nonprofit organizations nationally and internationally and many more informal talks at for state and regional organizations. She won the ASIS&T Outstanding Information Science Teacher Award in 2022, and her new book is Critical Data Storytelling for Libraries: Crafting Ethical Narratives for Advocacy and Impact.
About Learning Live
United for Libraries Learning Live sessions take place on the second Tuesday of each month from September to May at 2 p.m. Eastern Time. Each month’s session covers a hot topic of interest to Trustees, Friends, and/or Foundations, followed by Q&A and/or discussions. Sessions are open to all personal members of United for Libraries and those with statewide access.
How to Register
United for Libraries Personal Members & Statewide Partners
United for Libraries Personal Members
Statewide Partners (MA, MD, MI, MN, ND, NE, OR, SC, and VA)
Non-Members
Non-members may purchase a one-year subscription to Learning Live, which includes live attendance and on-demand access to nine webinars over a 12-month period beginning with the month of purchase.
Some Learning Live sessions are available for standalone purchase.
