Love Data Week Photo Gallery

Love Data Week table

Each February, the Libraries celebrates Love Data Week as a way to recognize all of the ways the CMU community interacts with data in their research and beyond. This year’s Love Data Week, held Feb. 9–13, explored the theme “Where's the Data?” It encouraged participants to think about the journey of their data from collection to access to preservation.

Attendees could attend six different hands-on workshops with in-person and virtual options throughout the week, and earn badges and a certificate for participating. They could also stop by tabling sessions in both Hunt and Sorrells libraries to learn more about the different ways the Libraries can help with data curation, management, and sharing, and even ask questions about their own projects.

This year, data lovers across CMU finished off the festivities with a new event on Wednesday, Feb. 18 called “Hands-On: Discover the Building Blocks of Data with LEGO®.” As part of Love Data Week, the Libraries used LEGO® bricks to visualize trends and explore data storytelling in a fun, collaborative environment.

Participants engaged in activities designed to represent their experiences working with data, the challenges they may encounter, and what responsible data management can look like. The drop-in session was facilitated by the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC)’s Director of Academic Outreach, Extension, and Engagement John Balash and Outreach and Engagement Network Coordinator Anthony Palyszeski.

“Since data is so impactful in our lives, it's important that we both understand and celebrate it,” said Balash. “At the Entertainment Technology Center, we believe in the power of play, and LEGO® is a wonderful medium and platform to promote playful learning. Collaborating with the University Libraries team was a great opportunity to add deep data expertise, so that we can engage our community in something truly special --- and uniquely CMU.”

The Libraries Data Services team offers support for coding, text and data mining, open science , research data management, and more. The CMU community can reach out to ask questions and get help with projects and resources.

Mellon College of Science Ph.D. student Yangyang Liu, a member of the Tartan Data Research Alliance, helped staff the Love Data Week table in Hunt Library.
Mellon College of Science Ph.D. student Yangyang Liu, a member of the Tartan Data Research Alliance, helped staff the Love Data Week table in Hunt Library.
New stickers celebrating Love Data Week featured a scotty dog suspended by heart-shaped balloons.
New stickers celebrating Love Data Week featured a scotty dog suspended by heart-shaped balloons.

Visitors to Hunt Library stopped by the Love Data Week table for snacks, valentines, and more information about the Libraries data services.
Visitors to Hunt Library stopped by the Love Data Week table for snacks, valentines, and more information about the Libraries data services.
“Hands-On: Discover the Building Blocks of Data with LEGO®,” held in IDeATe Studio A, invited participants to experiment with LEGO® bricks to visualize trends and explore data storytelling.
“Hands-On: Discover the Building Blocks of Data with LEGO®,” held in IDeATe Studio A, invited participants to experiment with LEGO® bricks to visualize trends and explore data storytelling.

Through the “Defining Your Data” activity, attendees took a pile of LEGO® bricks in random shapes and sizes, representing unstructured data, and organized them.
Through the “Defining Your Data” activity, attendees took a pile of LEGO® bricks in random shapes and sizes, representing unstructured data, and organized them.
STEM Librarian Huajin Wang, Research Data Services Librarian Alfredo González-Espinoza, Balash, and several attendees participate in the “Build Like Me” activity, which challenged participants to give verbal instructions for building a structure without using colors or words like “left,” “right,” “up,” and “down.”
STEM Librarian Huajin Wang, Research Data Services Librarian Alfredo González-Espinoza, Balash, and several attendees participate in the “Build Like Me” activity, which challenged participants to give verbal instructions for building a structure without using colors or words like “left,” “right,” “up,” and “down.”

The “Make and Take” activity, which illustrated the importance of clear documentation in research reproducibility, walked participants through the steps of creating a LEGO® Scotty dog.
The “Make and Take” activity, which illustrated the importance of clear documentation in research reproducibility, walked participants through the steps of creating a LEGO® Scotty dog.
Wang and an attendee explore the “Visualizing Library Lending Practices” activity, which focused on using data to tell data stories by creating bar charts with LEGO® bricks.
Wang and an attendee explore the “Visualizing Library Lending Practices” activity, which focused on using data to tell data stories by creating bar charts with LEGO® bricks.

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