The Alexandria Archive Institute

OPENING THE PAST, INSPIRING THE FUTURE

Act 5: Where were we in our story

by

Digital Data Stories: A Series in Narrative and Code

While it feels like we just finished March 2020, take three, it’s amazing to realize that we survived March 2022. Along with that, it’s the first anniversary of the Data Literacy Program’s (DLP’s) quarterly reports. So, what have we been doing in the last few months?

For the first quarter of 2022, we planned on completing residual goals from Q4 of 2021. These were tasks like uploading the public versions of our Tutorial series data stories and the completing a third data story. However, we had some new goals too. These included creating the DLP’s Table of Contents (ToC), outlining for future data stories, and giving talks and workshops.

We started the year with AAI/OC staff hosting a workshop at the AIA/SCS meetings. With that completed, we focused on the idea that good relationships and quality data stories come from slow and steady work. We’ve been taking this to heart by taking our time, adding and editing, preparing the way for the rest of the year, and doing a little bit of work on many data stories. 

On the right is blue text on a white background listing: The Tutorial Series; The Creative Series; The Dialogues Series; The Aggregative Series; The Solo Series; The Interactive Series; The Publication Series with each series on its own row; to the left is a grey box with text primarily in black. The text reads “Reading data involves understanding what data is, and what aspects of the world it represents. Working with data involves acquiring, cleaning, and managing it. Analyzing data involves filtering, sorting, aggregating, comparing, and performing other such analytic operations on it. Arguing with data involves using data to support a larger narrative intended to communicate a message to a particular audience. Bhargava, Rahul, et al. “Data murals: Using the arts to build data literacy.” The Journal of Community Informatics 12.3 (2016). Throughout this document, data stories are aligned to show how they can be used to reinforce Reading, Working, Analyzing, and Arguing with data.” Reading is in dark blue matching a circular book spine icon to the left of the text that is in white lines on the blue background; Working is in light blue matching a tabbed planner-style circular icon in white lines on the same light blue; Analyzing is in lavender corresponding to a circular computer icon in white lines on the same lavender; and Arguing is in pink corresponding to a circular text books icon in white lines

Here are all the series we’ll be working on an example of the kinds of data literacy components our stories will be utilizing.

Significantly, this pieces came together into the DLP’s Table of Contents (ToC). The ToC is a menu for data stories that collaborators can use to see what we have to offer. Currently, it describes our two complete tutorials and previews example data stories in the other series. These include Of Mycenaean Men: Public Archaeology Book Club in our Aggregative series and 30 Days to an Article: #ArchyWriMo Prompts to Inspire Your Writing in our Creative series. We’re excited to share the ToC soon and see what y’all want to sample.

Speaking of things to sample, Paulina gave three public talks this quarter. These talks were for the Berkeley Archaeological Research Facility, the University of Alberta’s Department of Computing Science, and the Calgary Chapter Of Sigma Xi. Each centered on a different topic and represented Paulina’s various research projects. Due to this, they explored subjects such as comics and archaeology; equity, diversity, and inclusion; and how to model historical landscapes. While only the talk on archaeology and comics is still available, Berkeley Talks converted the lecture to a podcast and shared it as well, which was really cool.

Lastly, we started a new article series called AAI Reads!. The series will highlight works that inform our programs and that AAI staff found valuable. Our hope is that these articles will make our development process more transparent and highlight cool projects outside the AAI. 

In summary, we made progress and are looking forward to Q2 of 2022, when will expand our AAI Reads! series and have more data stories to share. So, keep checking in and let us know if there’s something you’d like to see us do in the future!