E105 - Got Data? Big Data & School Libraries
3:15 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Ferrante (Conference Center)
From Google’s Ngram Viewer to Twitter Trends, from the World Bank to Google Public Data Explorer, the prevalence of (and its analysis and collection) is a brave new world for school librarians to understand and use. With Big Data becoming increasingly ubiquitous and easy to use, there is a role for librarians to teach their students how to access and manipulate “raw” data for their work as well as how to understand the basics of how the world around them is using Big Data. In addition to highlighting how Big Data can enrich their research, librarians are also crucial in reminding students about its potential pitfalls. Finally, the increasing ease of access of data collection tools (from SurveyMonkey to Google Forms) means that data analysis (done right!) is a good teachable skill that librarians can introduce to students for both school work and everyday life.
