Endangered Data Week, February 26 – March 2, 2018

Led by the Digital Library Federation, Endangered Data Week, February 26 – March 2, is an international, collaborative effort, coordinated across campuses, nonprofits, libraries, citizen science initiatives, and cultural heritage institutions, to shed light on public datasets that are in danger of being deleted, repressed, mishandled, or lost. The goals of Endangered Data Week are to promote care for endangered collections by publicizing the availability of datasets; increasing critical engagement with them, including through visualization and analysis; and by encouraging political activism for open data policies and the fostering of data skills through workshops on curation, documentation and discovery, improved access, and preservation.

This panel of diverse disciplinary representatives invites participants to discuss the definitions of data, practices of data collection, ethical considerations and threats against data. Viewed in concert with each other, these domain perspectives will aid us in understanding the complex environment of research data preservation and the numerous dangers that can threaten the long-term usability, sustainability, and discoverability of this information. This panel will include:

• Ricardo Punzalan, UMD iSchool (moderator)
• Angus Murphy, UMD Department of Plant Science & Landscape Architecture
• Joanne Archer, UMD Special Collections and University Archives
• Jennifer Serventi, National Endowment for the Humanities
• Catherine Knight Steele, UMD Department of Communication and Director of the African American History, Culture, and Digital Humanities

To supplement our expert panel, a number of practitioners from around the university and surrounding community will provide quick-fire presentations on their current data practices, describing the lived experience of professionals operating in a world of endangered data. Presenters will include:

• Matthew Miller, UMD Roshan Institute (moderator)
• Kelley O’Neal, UMD Libraries
• Maddie Clybourn, Prince George’s County Memorial Public Library System
• Jessica Lu, Post-Doc with African American History, Culture, and Digital Humanities
• Amy Wickner, UMD Special Collections and University Archives

This hands-on session will seek to address a topic that has important impacts for both individual researchers and the larger endangered data landscape: personal data preservation. This workshop will feature two segments: first, an overview of data preservation topics will familiarize participants with the core practices of data stewardship in individual practices and within the University community. Second, a hands-on tool demonstration will give participants a chance to try their hand at tools that facilitate self-guided archiving practices.

This will be a tech heavy course, please bring a personal computer.

An informal closing to Endangered Data Week 2018. Continue the conversation over drinks and snacks.

An open-ended conversation on the impacts of endangered data in all its varieties and forms. From personal data to tax-funded public research data, how will uncertain futures for data impact us? As individuals? As institutions? As nations?

Curious? Have ideas? Have questions? Bring them all and join in the conversation.