Associate Professor Kate McDowell will deliver the opening keynote at the upcoming workshop, “Storytelling with Data.” Registration is open for the two-day workshop, which will be held at Illinois on June 21-22 and taught by Brant Houston, GSLIS-affiliated faculty member and professor in the College of Media.
The workshop will teach professionals how to use data analysis techniques and storytelling to engage target audiences.
Storytelling has always been identified as a key way to foster human connectivity across cultures. With this knowledge, leaders in business and media have been able to properly communicate and promote their companies’ missions, promises, and products to the global public.
In this ever-changing digital age, the focus has shifted from more traditional ways of sharing these messages to those centered around the usage of technology. With this change comes an extensive amount of data, which often leaves people wondering how to best use it. This workshop is intended to help professionals leverage data in a way that informs their organization’s audience, persuades readers, and gives them a leg up on the competition. The program utilizes keynotes, panels, and hands-on learning experiences to help professionals learn the necessary tools to analyze, clean, and shape data into a compelling story.
McDowell is the assistant dean for student affairs and an associate professor at GSLIS, where her courses include youth services librarianship, history of readers, and storytelling (traditional and digital). Her teaching and research analyze historical and innovative ways to engage young people with reading, learning, and exploring our information world. She has published articles in Children and Libraries, Book History, Libraries and the Cultural Record, and Library Quarterly, and has several book chapters, including an examination of evolution in children's science books published in Culture of Print in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Medicine. Her article, “Surveying the Field: The Research Model of Women in Librarianship, 1882-1898,” won the biennial 2010 Donald G. Davis Article Award of the American Library Association’s Library History Round Table.
Houston holds the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Chair in Investigative and Enterprise Reporting at Illinois. He teaches investigative and advanced reporting in the Department of Journalism. Previously, he served as executive director of the Investigative Reporters and Editors organization and was an award-winning investigative reporter at daily newspapers. Houston is the author of three editions of the textbook, Computer-Assisted Reporting: A Practical Guide, and coauthor of the fourth edition and fifth edition of The Investigative Reporter’s Handbook. He currently is working on projects involving nonprofit journalism, ethnic media newsrooms, and new technologies for news-gathering.