Community Hubs for Citizen Science: Building Capacity through Libraries and Universities

Citizen science aims to enable people of all ages, cultures, and skills to engage in real scientific research by collecting or analyzing data typically shared with professional scientists, while provenly increasing public understanding of science. SciStarter.org and Arizona State University, as well as LIBER, are building and scaling programs and resources to catalyze libraries as community hubs for citizen science.

As a result, libraries are supporting an evolving workforce and lifelong learners while addressing known critical barriers in citizen science infrastructure, including lack of 1) project awareness, 2) access to instruments, and 3) community connections.

LIBER Citizen Science Working Group and SciStarter are now organizing a three-part joint webinar series. In this first session, we will examine the realized and potential role of libraries in catalyzing and accelerating participatory science. Darlene Cavalier (SciStarter and Arizona State University, USA), Robin Salthouse (retired librarian and advisor to SciStarter, USA), and the Science shop/Boutique des sciences, University of Lille, France (to be confirmed) will share their experiences and resources to enable everyone to participate in this collaborative and open approach of research and science. Raphaëlle Bats (Urfist – University of Bordeaux, France) and Sara Decoster (KU Leuven, Belgium) will moderate the series.

This free, online event is open to all. Register now to join us on the 13th of September at 5 pm (17h) (UTC+2) / 11 am (NYC).

[Photo by Alexis Brown on Unsplash]