Make Your Data Talk

AFTER COMPLETING THIS COURSE, YOU'LL BE ABLE TO:

• Identify the story your library's data is already telling, drawing on internal and external sources.
• Determine which data and elements best support the specific initiative or need you're trying to communicate.
• Apply a framework for connecting goals and motivations to shape your data into a compelling narrative.
• Select the narrative structure that best fits the story being told.
• Clarify your own goals and motivations to build an engaging and informative story.
• Tailor your storytelling approach to different audience attitude types.
• Use data storytelling as an advocacy tool, drawing on collective library success stories and resilience-building strategies.

You will leave with a data story in progress and a framework you can return to every time your library needs to make its case.

This course is especially helpful for:

• Library directors, managers, and department heads who need to communicate impact to boards, funders, or senior leadership
• Staff responsible for annual reports, strategic planning, advocacy, or making the case for library resources
• Librarians who collect plenty of data but struggle to turn it into a story that feels clear, persuasive, and memorable
• Anyone who needs to explain their library’s value in a way that goes beyond raw numbers and basic reporting
• Teams working on assessment, communications, or outreach who want stronger language for talking about outcomes and community impact

If that sounds like your role, you will probably see yourself in this course.

This course will feel especially relevant if you:

• Know your library is making a difference, but have a hard time getting that impact to come through clearly
• Have reports, statistics, and usage numbers, but are not sure how to shape them into a message that actually lands
• Need to advocate for funding, support, or resources and want your case to be stronger than a spreadsheet
• Keep running into situations where the numbers are there, but the story behind them is not
• Want a more confident, repeatable way to explain why your library matters to the people making decisions

This course was built for people who know the impact is real and want to get better at making other people see it too.

WEEK 1: SEPTEMBER 8

Tuesday, September 8, 2026

Course & Workshop Introduction | 2:00–2:10 pm ET

An introduction to the course structure and optional weekly readings, an overview of what to expect from session activities, and time to complete the course pre-assessment.

Session 1 | 2:10–4:00 pm ET
From History to Practice: Building Your Data Storytelling Foundation

What initiative, program, or goal are you trying to execute at your library? What need is behind that initiative and what data best supports that need? How do you combine that data with stories to advocate for your library? In this session, you will learn about data storytelling, an evidence-based strategy to communicate your library’s needs. You’ll get a quick historical snapshot of data and stories from the library profession and how the work you’ll do with the Data Storytelling Toolkit for Libraries is an extension of that history. You’ll participate in activities to identify your library stories and potential sources of data, and consider which data elements are most useful to communicate.

WEEK 2: SEPTEMBER 15

Tuesday, September 15, 2026

Session 1 | 2:00–4:00 pm ET
Structuring the Story: Narrative Frameworks for Library Data

How do you tell a compelling and memorable story about your library’s needs? How does understanding your motivations and goals support the story being told? This session teaches three narrative structures that can be used when telling your story to your community. You’ll learn how arguments, evidence, motivations, and goals are all connected in the data storytelling process. You’ll participate in activities that help you identify your motivations and goals, and the narrative structures that best support your unique data story.

WEEK 3: SEPTEMBER 22

Tuesday, September 22, 2026

Session 1 | 2:00–4:00 pm ET
From Skeptics to Supporters: Building Resilient Data Stories

How do you craft a story with the audience in mind? How do you address an audience that has a range of viewpoints towards the library? In this session, you’ll become familiar with audience attitude types, and the tone and tactics that work with each one. You’ll hear and share library success stories, and explore how resilience can be built through collective data storytelling. You’ll end this session by engaging with resilience strategies and a group activity to support your future success with data storytelling.

Dr. Kate McDowell, Professor, University of Illinois

Professor Kate McDowell’s interdisciplinary work examines how storytelling plays a vital role in humanizing data analysis and communication. She focuses on storytelling as information research and how the history of library storytelling informs data storytelling. Her book for libraries, Critical Data Storytelling for Libraries: Crafting Ethical Narratives for Advocacy and Impact, came out in 2025. Her article for information scholars, “Storytelling Wisdom: Story, information, and DIKW,” theorized story 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 5,000 librarians in over 50 countries so far. As of 2025, she had delivered over forty invited talks and over a dozen keynotes on her work to nonprofit organizations nationally and internationally. She won the ASIS&T Outstanding Information Science Teacher Award in 2022 and the ASIS&T Research Impact Award in 2026.

You already have the data. Circulation numbers, program attendance, partnerships, usage stats. The challenge is that when it matters most, those numbers don’t always translate into something people understand, remember, or act on.

This course gives you a practical, repeatable way to change that. Across three live sessions and guided assignments, you’ll work directly with your own library’s data to uncover the story behind it, shape it into a clear narrative, and adapt it for the audiences you need to influence. You won’t just learn the concept of data storytelling. You’ll actively build something you can use.

SESSIONS AND PRICING

This is a live online course. If you can’t attend in real time, you will receive access to the recordings.

COURSE FORMAT

This is a 3-week live online course with three 2-hour sessions, plus guided assignments to help you apply what you’re learning to your own data.

EXPECTED TIME COMMITMENT

This course is designed to take approximately 12 hours total, including live sessions and applied work. You can complete assignments at your own pace between sessions.

COURSE ACCESS

You will have access to session recordings and materials for six months after the course.

CREDIT & CERTIFICATE

You will receive 12 professional development credit hours and a Library Journal certificate of completion.

ACCESSIBILITY

All sessions include auto-captioning. If you require accommodations, please email course-support@libraryjournal.com upon registration and we will make our best efforts to support your needs.

SUPPORT

For technical or course-related support, please contact course-support@libraryjournal.com.