Data @ Your Finger Tips: dataMontgomery & Montgomery County Public Libraries, MD, Taxonomy Project

About the Program

Category: Information Technology (Best in Category)

Year: 2015

In 2012, Montgomery County, MD launched an open data web portal, dataMontgomery, to make County data available to the public in a consumable format. In 2014, the County completed a countywide inventory of available data, resulting in a published plan including over 550 datasets. At dataMontgomery's invitation, Montgomery County Public Libraries (MCPL) reviewed and organized their vast accumulation of data submitted by County departments. Librarians were uniquely qualified to assist in this project because of their taxonomy expertise. This project involved the use of various technological tools as well as traditional methods of data analysis. MCPL examined 553 data sets pertaining to various aspects of County services, which provided a good picture of the range and type of work performed by departments. This data was comprised of numeric as well as descriptive information, which were then categorized under logical headings with associated topics/keywords. After the preliminary categorization, MCPL, along with dataMontgomery, conducted a survey of Montgomery County residents in order to gauge whether the data were organized in a useful manner. The survey was conducted online and in person and yielded helpful results which corroborated most of the initial findings. At the conclusion of the survey, the findings and analysis were submitted to dataMontgomery for consideration and incorporation into the dataMontgomery web portal