Endangered Data Week

Endangered Data Week

Endangered Data Week is a national series of independently-organized events intended to raise awareness of threats to publicly available data, discuss the power dynamics of data creation, sharing, and retention, and work to make endangered data more accessible and secure.

Endangered Data Week 2019 will be February 25—March 1, 2019. A map and list of 2019 EDW events, including many virtual events, is available at endangereddataweek.org/map.

Visit the Endangered Data Week web site.

Endangered Data Week Twitter chat

2019 Twitter Chat

25 February 2019 | 1pm EST & 9pm EST

As part of Endangered Data Week,, this group hosted an #EndangeredData Twitter chat hosted by @brandontlocke, @worldcatlady, & @jaheppler. Endangered Data Week is a distributed event is designed to bring “awareness to different types of threats to publicly available data, engage with the power dynamics involved in data creation, sharing, and retention, and make endangered data more secure and accessible.”

Discussion questions:

• Q1: Introductions! Tell everyone a little something about who & where you are. What motivates your interest in #EndangeredData?
• Q2: Have you taken part in activities to preserve data or raise awareness of data stewardship? Doing anything for #EndangeredData Week?
• Q3: What types of open data intersect with your, your colleagues, and your patrons professional and civic lives? Are there barriers to accessing & using this data? Are barriers typically user tech skills, tech/policy barriers to access, or something else? #EndangeredData
• Q4: Are datasets that matter to you or the communities you serve under any kinds of threat? Which datasets? What makes them #EndangeredData?
• Q5: What are the policies regarding the collection and use of data where you live? Are there any uses of data by the government that are potentially problematic? Are the agencies in your area clear about how they’re using data? #EndangeredData
• Q6: Government agencies are collecting data using closed, proprietary algorithms for things like predictive policing, determining bail, and facial recognition. What concerns do you have about the role of algorithms in government policies? #EndangeredData

2018 Twitter Chat

27 February 2018

As part of Endangered Data Week,, this group hosted an #EndangeredData Twitter chat hosted by @brandontlocke, @worldcatlady, @nowviskie, @captain_maybe. Endangered Data Week is a distributed event is designed to bring “awareness to different types of threats to publicly available data, engage with the power dynamics involved in data creation, sharing, and retention, and make endangered data more secure and accessible.”

Discussion questions:

• Q1. Introductions! Tell everyone a little something about who & where you are. What motivates your interest in #EndangeredData?
• Q2. Have you taken part in activities to preserve data or raise awareness of data stewardship? Doing anything for #EndangeredData Week?
• Q3. How do you personally (or how does your community or organization) use or think about publicly collected/available data? #EndangeredData
• Q4. Do you know of datasets that could be collected and made publicly available, but aren't? How could they impact you/your community/your organization? #EndangeredData
• Q5. Are datasets that matter to you or the communities you serve under any kinds of threat? Which datasets? What makes them #EndangeredData?
• Q6. What’s the biggest thing missing from local or national/global #EndangeredData teaching, awareness, or skills training, from your point of view?

2017 Twitter Chat

Newsflash! The Storify record of the chat is now available!

Mark your calendar for Monday, April 17th at 3pm Eastern and join us for a Twitter chat to kick off Endangered Data Week. @erik_radio and @nowviskie will be your hosts. Questions, which will be posted from the @CLIRDLF Twitter account, are listed below:

• Q1: How do you personally (or your community or organization) use or think about publicly collected/available data? #EndangeredData
• Q2: Are datasets that matter to you or the communities you serve under any kinds of threat? Which datasets? What makes them #EndangeredData?
• Q3: Does how we define data affect perceived risks? Can we think more broadly about data w/regard to rescue & preservation? #EndangeredData
• Q4: What signals or conditions alert you to datasets that might be at risk? What mechanisms are in place to monitor this? #EndangeredData
• Q5: What records or data trails can be used to document data that has been removed? What is needed to accomplish this? #EndangeredData
• Q6: Have you taken part in activities to preserve data or raise awareness of data stewardship? Doing anything for #EndangeredData Week?

Just follow @CLIRDLF and use the hashtag #EndangeredData to join in.

Ideas for events

If you would like to host events at your institution or in your city, you may use materials in the EDW resources repository or develop your own. If you're hosting an event, be sure to add it to our list of events on the website using the Endangered Data Week submission form.

Consider hosting:

• Subject-specific workshops or presentations using endangered datasets
• Lectures or roundtables on issues of transparency, policy, or critical data literacy
• Workshop/hackathon on organizing, reformatting, or visualizing endangered data
• DataRescue events
• Letter writing/advocacy campaigns
• Data curation workshops or training
• Data Expeditions
• Workshops on ways to use archived websites for research
• Web scraping/web archiving workshops
• Data storytelling events, using tools like these, from DataRefuge

Don't forget to post your event!

Contribute to the resources repository

We have started an EDW Resources Github repository, for sharing event materials and ideas. Please contribute! You can do this by submitting a pull request on the Github repository or by emailing blocke at msu dot edu

• Add the documentation and materials from a workshop you're planning
• Contribute information to the existing documentation
• Create a postcard to mail in to legislative officials
• Design promotional materials for others to use

Media and promotion

• The EDW logo and a die cut sticker file are available for download in the Resources repository
• Contact Kristen Mapes (kmapes at msu dot edu) to request stickers!

Visit the Endangered Data Week web site.