OBJECTIVE

In 2017 and 2018, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library has celebrated data weeks in conjunction with three grassroots projects: Love Your Data Week 2017, Love Data Week 2018, and Endangered Data Week 2018. This poster investigates the costs and benefits of data outreach events, including workshops, tours, panels, user testing sessions, and more; the poster also describes marketing failures and successes. To what extent has this data outreach program achieved its four goals: raising the profile of the medical library as a campus data resource, helping users better document their data, collecting data on users' experience of library data services, and increasing awareness of the importance of Census data for health services research?

METHODS

Over two years, we have designed, implemented, and assessed data outreach programming targeted specifically at medical campus constituencies. Some events were designed for data weeks, such as a panel on Census data, social justice, and social determinants of health during Endangered Data Week 2018. Other events came from our regular menu of data-related workshops. Some successful 2017 events are being repeated in 2018, such as a data documentation-themed tour of the Cushing Tumor Registry. Less successful 2017 events evolved significantly or disappeared in 2018, and some 2018 events are entirely new, such as user testing sessions for a new research data management services website.

To assess this outreach program, we use event participation statistics, surveys, and social media metrics. Web analytics are part of the assessment program in 2018.

RESULTS

In 2017, two medical library staffers spent ten hours (preparation and contact time), on three successful events, in one week, with more than forty in-person participants. In 2018, four medical librarians have planned ten events, across two weeks, with valuable contributions from external partners, other units at the university, and additional medical library staff.

CONCLUSIONS

As the two 2018 data weeks fall in February, full results will be reported at the symposium, along with lessons learned about effective marketing and project management for data outreach. Our findings will inform -- and, we hope, inspire -- data outreach programming at medical libraries and academic libraries with similar patron profiles.