School of Information Sciences

McDowell to present keynote on data storytelling to state library leaders

Kate McDowell
Kate McDowell, Professor

Associate Professor Kate McDowell will present the keynote at the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA) Spring Meeting on March 4 in Washington, D.C. COSLA is an independent organization whose membership consists of the top library officers of the states and territories, variously designated as state librarian, director, commissioner, or executive secretary.

In her keynote, "Data Storytelling for Libraries," McDowell will explore how data storytelling principles can be applied to library contexts and share strategies for transforming data into compelling narratives. As she stated in a recent interview in Choice 360, "an individual example activates emotions; numeric indicators of how many people would benefit in the same way activate resource allocation." McDowell's keynote will be followed by an interactive opportunity for participants to explore how these storytelling approaches can be adapted for participants' specific state contexts, with particular focus on survey data and student success indicators.

"In this time of so much misinformation about library mission, goals, and impacts, data storytelling is a key way of turning everyday statistics and required data reports into a resource for connecting with the public," she said.

McDowell's interdisciplinary work examines how storytelling plays a vital role in humanizing data analysis and communication. She focuses on storytelling as information research, social justice storytelling, and how the history of library storytelling can enhance contemporary data storytelling. Her article "Storytelling wisdom: Story, information, and DIKW" theorizes storytelling as a fundamental information form. She leads the nationally-funded Data Storytelling Toolkit for Librarians project to equip libraries with narrative tools for data-informed advocacy, which has been used by over 1,000 librarians in over 50 countries so far. Her storytelling teaching was internationally celebrated with the ASIS&T Outstanding Information Science Teacher Award in 2022. She holds both an MS and PhD in library and information science from Illinois.

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