3 Additional Resources
While we mostly relied on the book Effective Data Storytelling: How to Drive Change with Data, Narrative and Visual, we did share the following additional resources.
Articles about the Changing Demographics Coming in Higher Ed
- Changing Demographics and Digital Transformation
- Look at the Numbers
- A Second Demographic Cliff Adds to Urgency for Change
- New Economy and Changing Demographics that Will Impact Professional, Continuing and Online Education
- Changing Demographics
- Changing Student Demographics: Rising Number of Professional Students
Possible questions to ponder:
- What DEI goals does your institution have?
- Who are the underserved students at your institution?
- Do you already have an equity element in your project? If not, can you add it? And if you cannot add it now, what can you do soon on that?
- How can the library help close equity gaps?
- What have you already done to improve equity in your library?
- What will you do next? If resources were not an issue, what would you really want to do to improve equity in your library?
P.S. Another interesting resource you might want to circle back to later: The Agile College: How Institutions Successfully Navigate Demographic Changes by Nathan D. Grawe (local author! at Carleton College in Northfield, MN). While libraries are not mentioned in the book specifically, there are some topics the author discusses where libraries can help:
- Retention and student success will be important
- Making connections to vulnerable students
- Creating a sense of belonging
- Student worker experience
Lastly, prospects for the Midwest are not great. There will be eliminated positions and mergers. How do we position the library in this environment?
Scrollytelling and Fancy Tools
We have all seen those really cool stories with images and animations that reveal themselves as we scroll down.
At first these stories took a lot of effort from web developers, but newer tools are making cool effects easier to do. Here are some resources about the possibilities and the tools:
- From Storytelling To Scrollytelling: A Short Introduction and Beyond*
- The Scrollytelling Tools Behind Great Narrative Content (you can use Vev for free if you are OK with their watermark)
- 15 visual storytelling tools for content teams (only 3 free stories with them)
- Best Storytelling tools
P.S. from Jill
I think scrollytelling can really help increase engagement, so I wanted to try Vev. (Microsoft Sway and Adobe Express didn’t offer enough features.)
I really like it! There is a bit of a learning curve, but you have a lot of options and control of every little thing.
Check out my first attempt – it is not up to NYT standards, so consider it proof of concept.
No pressure for you to use Vev – I just want you to know this is within your reach! Check out this tutorial if you are interested – How to Build an Annual Report in Vev.
Storytelling at Minitex Connect
Laura Packer’s session on storytelling at Minitex Connect on May 3, 2023 was interesting. She has a very compelling speaking style. Her main message was: You already know how to do this!
What do you think about that?
She provided slides plus documents on organizational storytelling here and the recording is here.
Data Visualization course on LinkedIn Learning
Another optional resource for you if you have access to LinkedIn Learning is Data Visualization: Storytelling By Bill Shander. It is only 1.5 hours and has some nice review of story structure and mechanisms.
Accessibility
Creating Accessible documents:
Creating Accessible videos:
