Cigarini Anna, Bonhoure Isabelle, Vicens Julián, Perelló Josep
OpenSystems Research Group, Departament de Física de la Matèria Condensada, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona 08028, Spain.
Universitat de Barcelona Institute of Complex Systems UBICS, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
Data Brief. 2021 Dec 13;40:107713. doi: 10.1016/j.dib.2021.107713. eCollection 2022 Feb.
As libraries struggle to keep pace with the changing societal landscape, emerging practices such as citizen science (CS) initiatives are being incorporated to reinforce the idea of public libraries as gathering, meeting, and collaboration spaces within the context of shared community and shared learning resources. However, there is little empirical evidence of whether the most open and participatory ways that CS puts forward can converge with and be nurtured by the essence of public libraries. Also, the roles of librarians and users in the 'next generation public library' have been under-developed. As the number of CS initiatives at public libraries grows, so does the need to collect evidence on the impact and the capacity of assimilation of CS practices. The data describes librarians and users' perceptions of participating in a citizen science project. Two hands-on activities for librarians of the Barcelona Network of Public Libraries were implemented. One was a training course for 30 librarians from 24 libraries which allowed them to envisage citizen science implementation in each library. The second activity consisted in the co-creation of a citizen social science project. 40 library users, 7 librarians from 3 different cities, and professional scientists, were involved. The data on librarians and users' perception was collected through participant observation, surveys, and a focus group to identify strengths and challenges of implementing citizen science at public libraries. The data covers librarians and users attitudes towards citizen science, their motivations to participate, their perceived ability to implement a citizen science project (as for librarians) or to contribute to science (as for library users), and the participants intention to keep engaged with citizen science, drawing on the Theory of Planned Behavior. Responses to closed-ended survey questions are analyzed at a descriptive level. The qualitative feedback from the focus group and the open-ended survey question on motivations is subjected to a thematic analysis. The data offers interesting insights to identify opportunities and challenges of implementing citizen science at public libraries, contributing to the debate over the public library's mission as local community hub.
随着图书馆努力跟上不断变化的社会格局，诸如公民科学（CS）倡议等新兴实践正被纳入其中，以强化公共图书馆作为共享社区和共享学习资源背景下的聚集、会面和协作空间的理念。然而，几乎没有实证证据表明CS所提出的最开放和参与性最强的方式是否能与公共图书馆的本质相契合并得到其培育。此外，图书馆员和用户在“下一代公共图书馆”中的角色尚未得到充分发展。随着公共图书馆中CS倡议数量的增加，收集有关CS实践的影响和同化能力证据的需求也在增加。这些数据描述了图书馆员和用户对参与公民科学项目的看法。为巴塞罗那公共图书馆网络的图书馆员开展了两项实践活动。一项是为来自24家图书馆的30名图书馆员举办的培训课程，使他们能够设想在每家图书馆实施公民科学项目。第二项活动是共同创建一个公民社会科学项目。有40名图书馆用户、来自3个不同城市的7名图书馆员和专业科学家参与其中。通过参与观察、调查和焦点小组收集了关于图书馆员和用户看法的数据，以确定在公共图书馆实施公民科学的优势和挑战。数据涵盖图书馆员和用户对公民科学的态度、他们参与的动机、他们认为实施公民科学项目的能力（对于图书馆员而言）或对科学做出贡献的能力（对于图书馆用户而言），以及参与者继续参与公民科学的意愿，借鉴计划行为理论。对封闭式调查问题的回答在描述层面进行分析。焦点小组的定性反馈和关于动机的开放式调查问题进行了主题分析。这些数据为识别在公共图书馆实施公民科学的机遇和挑战提供了有趣的见解，有助于围绕公共图书馆作为当地社区中心的使命展开辩论。
