This unsettling realization made the concept of media preservation, often relegated to formal archives and academic studies, feel personal. I found myself tracking down hard copies of favorite shows to safeguard them—not just against the physical degradation of discs but against the creeping disappearance of cultural materials that reflect specific eras and viewpoints. These losses aren’t just personal frustrations; they highlight a systemic weakness in our digital infrastructure, where history can vanish without notice or recourse.

A few months ago, I embarked on a digital preservation project of my own. What began as a seemingly straightforward task—building a personal media server—took on greater urgency. Using a ZimaBlade 7700, a compact yet versatile device, I set up two 8TB hard drives and began transferring years’ worth of DVDs: movies, television series, entire seasons preserved on fragile discs. The goal was convenience, but it quickly became something more—a way to reclaim control in an age where access to the things we love feels increasingly precarious.

Cartoons, films, and other forms of media may not typically qualify as “historical data,” yet they carry embedded cultural narratives, snapshots of societal trends, and evolving norms. With recent reports of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks targeting entities like the Internet Archive, a troubling question emerges: how much of our digital heritage is quietly slipping away? And what does it mean for a society when its collective memories—the lighthearted as well as the profound—are so easily erased from public access, potentially lost forever?

This is not a new concept

I’m reminded of Marion Stokes. From the tumultuous events of the 1970s to the dawn of the digital age, the Philadelphia activist, librarian, and television producer tirelessly amassed over 70,000 VHS tapes containing non-stop news coverage. But this was no ordinary collection. For Marion, the news was more than just a fleeting moment on the screen. It was a vital historical record, a window into the soul of society, and a snapshot of our collective evolution. In an era of constant change and flux, Marion and her extraordinary VHS tape archive is a tale of obsession, intrigue, and the importance of preserving our past.

Marion Stokes’ commitment to preserving television broadcasts was more than a personal project—it was a powerful countermeasure against the impermanence of media. Her vast archive of VHS tapes captured news and events that, if left to the fate of corporate interests or technological shifts, might have vanished without a trace. Stokes understood that these recordings were not just ephemeral entertainment; they were cultural artifacts, snapshots of societal perspectives, and evolving narratives. 

In much the same way, today’s media collectors and data visualization artists play a vital role in preserving the digital past. The sweeping erasures on streaming platforms echo Stokes’ mission, underscoring an urgent need to protect the digital world’s fragile memory before it slips through our fingers, one missing file at a time.

Spontaneous data deletion should scare you

The fragility of digital archives and the spontaneous deletion of data pose a unique challenge to the field of data visualization. For visualization artists, who rely on historical and real-time data to tell meaningful stories, the sudden disappearance of datasets isn’t just an inconvenience—it’s a barrier to truth, context, and continuity. When data vanishes, we lose more than just numbers or records; we lose the threads that connect insights across time, dismantling the larger narratives that might otherwise emerge.

From a data humanism perspective, the stakes are especially high. Data humanism emphasizes the human context behind data points, viewing them as more than abstract information to be processed. It treats data as a bridge to human stories, and visualization as a medium to bring those stories to life in ways that inspire empathy and reflection. But when datasets disappear—whether through platform changes, corporate decisions, or cyber-attacks—visualization artists are cut off from essential materials that fuel this process of discovery and connection.

This impermanence is not just an obstacle for artists but a deeper societal issue. If data points that capture essential aspects of our world vanish unpredictably, the ability to draw insights from history and context weakens. Patterns go unrecognized, biases slip through unnoticed, and societal issues fade from the public eye, leaving us with a fragmented and incomplete view of reality. Data visualizations grounded in humanism should serve as records, preserving insights that resonate on both intellectual and emotional levels. When data becomes as ephemeral as a tweet, visualization artists must question how best to protect the integrity of their work and, ultimately, the stories they aim to tell.

What you can do about it

Data visualization artists aren’t powerless in the face of data’s fragility. While the threat of data erasure looms, artists and analysts can take active steps to safeguard their sources, ensuring that the stories they tell have the chance to endure. First, creating local copies of datasets and backing them up to physical storage offers a level of protection. Just as we save our own personal memories, these datasets represent collective memory, and they’re worth preserving beyond a single, vulnerable source. While it may be tempting to trust that publicly available data will remain online, a local archive is an artist’s insurance against impermanence.

But preservation shouldn’t stop at individual copies. Visualization artists can leverage public repositories like the Internet Archive or other data libraries to share and secure their datasets. By uploading historical data to open-access platforms, we contribute to a collective effort that transcends individual projects. In doing so, we ensure that even if a source disappears, the data lives on for future artists, researchers, and the public to use and interpret. These repositories are a shared foundation that supports continuity across projects, disciplines, and even generations.

The role of visualization artists can expand to act as advocates for data integrity. Open-source tools, transparent data collection practices, and data-sharing initiatives all serve as bulwarks against spontaneous deletion. By engaging with communities that value open access, visualization artists can support broader conversations on digital preservation and advocate for policies that protect data as a public good.

The effort to preserve data is an act of stewardship. Visualizing data is more than arranging numbers or statistics; it’s about capturing the human experience as it unfolds. If we view ourselves as caretakers of digital memory, then it becomes our responsibility to protect that memory from slipping away. After all, data visualizations not only tell the stories of today but also create a legacy for tomorrow—one we’re all responsible for preserving.

The post When the Data is Gone appeared first on Nightingale.

Love Data Week (LDW) is an annual international celebration dedicated to raising awareness about data literacy, and to building a community interested in learning about—and resolving—issues related to data. The week hits on a wide range of topics including research data management, data sharing, preservation, reuse, dissemination, and library-based research services. Participating institutions and individual attendees connect via social media and at locally hosted celebrations both in person and online. Participation can be as simple as following the engagement on Twitter and Instagram (#LoveData23 and @LoveDataWeek), or more involved such as planning local activities. 

Topics are reflective of contemporary data interests and issues—data privacy, data ethics, data visualization, data management, qualitative coding, mapping and GIS data, accessing unique data collections, data in the context of climate change, romantic relationships, race, and human disasters. The calendar of events for 2023’s LDW, which runs from Feb. 13 to Feb 17, is available online—and most are held virtually and are open to anyone. 

LDW began at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) in 2016 as a Valentine’s Day (week) initiative coordinated by Heather Coates, a data management librarian at the school. The week was an opportunity to promote organizers’ own data services, data collections, and library resources. Originally branded as ‘Love Your Data Week’, the official name was changed in 2018 to Love Data Week, and has grown dramatically, both nationally and internationally. 

Participation has surged from 30 institutions in 2016 to over 200 internationally. And the interest has expanded over that time, too, from academic libraries and research centers in the United States to a broader group that now includes data centers, researchers, policy makers, archives, and more! (For a peek at the event’s humble roots, you can dig around the week’s archived web pages.)

In late 2020, the original organizers of LDW initiated discussions to relocate and centralize the week’s coordination and planning activities. As a result of these discussions, the University of Michigan’s Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) volunteered to host going forward. Due to the global pandemic, LDW participation in 2021 decreased slightly as local events shifted from in-person to online. At the same time, however, LDW’s outreach expanded with the help of ICPSR, the celebration’s new home. Online exposure and awareness of LDW increased, and that year’s virtual events reached wider audiences. 

Today, LDW is an event for everyone regardless of expertise or experience in data-focused work, and allows for the open interpretation of “what is data?” It remains at its core a celebration of data that leverages social media for fostering a global community and inspiring participating institutions to host activities for building local community. The Planning Committee, primarily made up of data-focused and resource librarians, has become more diversified and now includes outreach specialists, graphic designers, archivists, learning specialists, and IT experts. 

Annual themes for the event have included Data Quality (2017), Data Stories (2018), Data in Everyday Life (2019), Data: Delivering a Better Future (2021), and Data is for Everyone (2022). The theme for this year’s celebration is Data: Agent of Change. It was inspired by a 2021 content analysis of LDW events, in which the authors noted: 

Topics in the current cultural zeitgeist featured strongly, with events containing elements of data ethics or social justice, or COVID-19, or (in some cases) both. While a cynic could suggest a desire to leverage these topics for user engagement, or simple virtue signaling, one could conversely argue an awareness among data librarians of the need for change, and a willingness to undertake some part of this work. The use of data as an agent of change, though, is one bearing discussion—perhaps as a topic for next year’s Love Data Week. 

The “love” for data is reflected in the more than 100 upcoming synchronous and asynchronous, in-person and online workshops, panels, interactive games, panels, and lectures taking place around the world in recognition of LDW. I have shared my excitement for this year’s events with my colleagues and we are looking forward to becoming part of the community via the events and active social media interactions. There are ways to participate at any level of involvement. On behalf of this year’s Planning Committee, I invite you to discover all that is Love Data Week! 

Welcome to the community! 

Editor’s Note: Patricia Condon at the University of New Hampshire contributed to this article.

The post ‘Love Data Week’ is in Full Swing. Here’s How to Participate appeared first on Nightingale.

While California collects racial and ethnic data on a host of issues, from opioid overdose to COVID prevalence to academic outcomes for students, data for Native Americans is reported less frequently, or unreported due to small sample numbers and policies that hinder collection.

The problems with data collection facing the Yurok Tribe are not unique to California, nor are they specific to Native American populations. What the Yurok Tribe experiences exemplifies a broader issue that data analysts and visualization practitioners should confront. How can we analyze findings and visualize results when data for important communities are simply not reported?

This is the question we, a data storyteller and an epidemiologist, posed to ourselves as we set out last summer to work with the Yurok Tribe Wellness Coalition as part of a technical assistance program sponsored by the California Overdose Prevention Network, a program of the Center for Health Leadership and Practice.

The issues the Yurok Tribe face helped us better appreciate what so many groups contend with and allowed us to puzzle through what can be done to help a community aiming to confront modern challenges by leveraging data. Beyond simply obtaining broad data about Native American status, the Yurok Tribe also needs more specific tribal affiliation identification, which represents a political designation of the tribe’s sovereignty. Alas, this information, which can help the tribe provide necessary services while preserving important traditions, is rarely available.

Although the Yurok Tribe is California’s largest, at about 6,300 enrolled members, it simply can’t access crucial indicators of how members are faring. As Lori Nesbitt, the opioid program manager for the Tribe’s Wellness Coalition, observes, they often don’t get any data until a member dies from an opioid overdose, when it’s obviously too late to provide supportive and life-saving services.

Those of us who work frequently with data understand what’s at issue here: epidemiologists, statisticians, and analysts reporting racial and ethnic information are trained to suppress populations with small numbers, or aggregate several smaller groups together. Although these are accepted as good statistical practices, these approaches often fail to articulate trends at the micro-level, which challenge an array of communities in the U.S., including tribal populations, Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders, Middle Eastern and North African populations, and other ethnographic groups.

In short, the aggregate means we aren’t looking at the full story. As California Governor Gavin Newsom often observes, “We don’t live in the aggregate.” Disaggregating smaller populations (whether they are racial and ethnic groups, by tribal membership, or some other important feature) is a technique that analysts and data storytellers should include in their toolbox to advance health and equity, even if it bumps up against statistical practices. There are strategies for disaggregating data (combining multiple years of data, oversampling smaller populations) while maintaining statistical rigor.

But if we can’t disaggregate, we’re left with incomplete information, and these blank cells in tables and empty spaces on graphs are often visualized by an asterisk, indicating suppressed data. The National Congress of American Indians’ Policy Research Center says it well:

“American Indians and Alaska Natives may be described as the ‘Asterisk Nation’ because an asterisk, instead of a data point, is often used in data displays when reporting racial and ethnic data due to various data collection and reporting issues, such as small sample size, large margins of errors, or other issues related to the validity and statistical significance of data on American Indians and Alaska Natives.”

However, beyond issues of data analysis, there are important historical and contemporary factors at play — namely the genocide and oppression of Native Americans which pre-dates the founding of the United States of America. During our project, we learned from our Yurok Tribe partners how this history and its legacy plays out today, even through our data systems. The U.S. Census, for example, did not count Native Americans until 70 years after the inaugural census in 1790 (to learn more, check out this timeline from the U.S. Census Bureau and this commentary from the Pew Research Center). And in a more modern example, CNN’s election coverage this past November reported out results from Native Americans as a group they termed, “something else,” which was offensive to people of all racial/ethnic backgrounds, particularly Native Americans and other communities of color.

The end result is a paucity of data, and, put simply, you can’t visualize an asterisk. If the data are not there, how are we to know and visually describe how these populations are faring?

Through our project, the Yurok Tribe Wellness Coalition sought to better understand what data were being collected on Native Americans (and specific tribes) by public agencies across Humboldt and Del Norte counties, where the tribe is located, so that data reporting can be improved to better support the Yurok people and prevent opioid overdoses. We partnered with the Coalition to conduct interviews with public agencies (social services, health, law enforcement, education) to learn more about their data systems and practices.

What did we learn?

1. Tribe-specific data — and data on Native Americans in general — is not regularly collected by the eight public agencies who participated in our assessment.
2. Data sharing policies are in place between non-tribal and tribal entities, but they are underutilized.
3. Despite the challenges, public agencies are interested in partnering with tribes to improve data collection and reporting. All agencies think there would be benefits to the larger community through better data collection and sharing.

So what broader lessons can be drawn from this project? Simply being aware of who’s not measured is an important first step. Next is to talk to the tribes, and other populations, who may be made “invisible” in data about how we can do better. It’s only in partnership that we can start to make data more representative of all groups.

As the census count wraps up in the United States, we’ll soon analyze results and create illuminating visualizations summarizing the findings. As we do, however, it’s important to account for those who are simply not counted, or who are undercounted by federal, state, and local agencies who have no data, or don’t report the data they do have.

In the coming months and years, as census data are compiled, released, analyzed, and visualized, and as we fret over and visualize COVID-19 findings — including now, the need to obtain racial/ethnic breakdowns for vaccination data — let’s keep in mind who we don’t count, or who we undercount. Let’s remember that we’re often not able to visualize information about Native Americans and the hundreds of tribes in the United States, as well as Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders — such as Hmong, Filipinos, Cambodians, Fujians — and many more groups that we typically combine together into broad racial and ethnic categories. We need to advocate for them and for the release of their data, recognizing that the results from such data activism can catalyze social change and empower these communities to improve issues of dire importance like drug overdose.

The post Asterisk Nation: One Tribe’s Challenge to Find Data About its Population appeared first on Nightingale.

In our current reality, the chaos seems to be getting stronger: The earth is littered with trash, water is polluted, people are neglected, violence is everywhere, and disadvantaged groups of society are collapsing. We say: “Not on our watch.”

Women Weaving Reality

This May, we started a solemn yet uplifting exploration of the fortitude and violent oppression of women in the last decade. As the new decade has been primarily occupied with the COVID-19 pandemic, we had one key question in mind: what is the impact of COVID-19 on female-centered political activity worldwide?

We set a timeframe from February 1, 2020 to May 16, 2020 as the “COVID-19 Pandemic Burst”. Why? On January 30, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus a global emergency, while several countries confirmed the rise of COVID-19 cases and began to apply countermeasures and health emergency plans. On May 15, 2020, there were more than 4.4 million confirmed cases worldwide.

Through the medium of data visualization, we hope to shed light on the stories of women fighting for their rights in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic burst, of women who are seeking to be heard across social distances and outside lockdowns.

106 Days, 1,761 Events, 104 Active Countries

From its inception, 2020 has been plagued by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, infecting 76.8 million individuals (and counting) worldwide and disrupting our livelihoods, economies, and political freedoms. Its impacts have been exacerbated for women and girls across every sphere, including health, the economy, security, and social protection. However, despite lockdowns and social distancing measures, women are marching against femicide, protesting government responses to COVID-19, and raising their voices to fight for human rights and equality.

Over 106 days of the COVID-19 pandemic burst, the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) collated 1,761 events of female-centered political activity, primarily in Central and South America, South and East Asia, and the Middle East. These included demonstrations featuring women as well as political violence targeted against them.

During that period, 1,101 ‘Peaceful Protest’ events were reported worldwide, making up 60% of total events. In comparison to the same period in 2019, the number of protests almost doubled. Interestingly, many of these protests occurred despite lockdown or curfew measures, demonstrating that political activism is still a priority during the pandemic.

However, not every protest was peaceful. Some involved clashes with police while others resulted in vandalization of property. According to an ACLED report, women experience disproportionately excessive force, more than in similar events that don’t feature women. In addition to demonstrations, there were 474 events of violence against women, a third of which occurred in Mexico. Alondra Torres’ experience was one.

“We don’t need you to praise us, just let us do our job.”

Health workers face violent attacks in Mexico

Alondra Torres, a doctor from Jalisco, Mexico, was walking her dog on the morning of April 15th when a person threw diluted bleach at her face for wearing her uniform. She suffered conjunctivitis and contact dermatitis as a result.

In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, resistance, aggression, and discrimination against employees in the health and social sector have dramatically increased. Because 7 out of 10 health and social care workers are women, they are disproportionately targeted. Dozens of incidents against them were reported during the COVID-19 Pandemic Burst, including nine attacks, one abduction, and three fatalities.

In Mexico, female nurses have been hit by stones, kicked off public transport, and have had hot coffee and bleach poured on them amidst fears that they might spread coronavirus. One nurse, Melody Rodriguez, was blocked from entering her village on the way home from work because she “came from a source of infection.”

“They symbolically represent the disease itself and the cure,” says María del Carmen Montenegro, from the Faculty of Psychology at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

While the Mexican government has taken steps to condemn these attacks and protect health care workers, female health workers are simply asking for respect. “We don’t need you to praise us, just let us do our job,” said Rodriguez.

“Why are you beating me? I am trying to survive!”

Police brutality threatens to transform the health crisis into a human rights crisis

On April 8th, street vendor, Alanyo Joyce, was packing up her fried chicken stall just before the 7:00 p.m. curfew imposed as part of Uganda’s lockdown measures. The next thing she knew, she was burning. A law enforcement officer had kicked a pan of boiling oil onto her, causing severe burns on her face, chest, and arms. In Uganda, women who are trying to maintain their livelihoods during the pandemic are being punished. Another woman, after being chased and caned for selling fruits and vegetables, cried out: “Why are you beating me? What crime have I committed? I am trying to survive!”

Similar reports came from other countries in the region, including Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe. In Kenya, three police officers whipped women at the Mitunguu market while enforcing social distancing. In Liberia, a pregnant woman was beaten by drug enforcement agents for violating a 3:00 p.m. stay at home order.

These alarming assaults are part of a larger trend of excessive force and abuses by police enforcing COVID-19 countermeasures. Human Rights Watch has condemned security forces in the region. “It is shocking that people are losing their lives and livelihoods while supposedly being protected from infection,” said Otsieno Namwaya, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Police brutality isn’t just unlawful; it is also counterproductive in fighting the spread of the virus.”

While the enforcement of countermeasures is important in helping stem the spread of coronavirus, the use of violence threatens to transform this health crisis into a human rights crisis.

“Now, it’s society’s turn to change.”

Japan’s Flower Demo Movement blooms for the last time on International Women’s Day 2020

Sunday, March 8, 2020, marked International Women’s Day, a day of celebrating women’s achievements and a gender-equal world. This year’s theme was “I am Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights”, and despite the pandemic, it was the most active yet, with 393 events spanning 56 countries. From marches in Pakistan and Mexico to demonstrations in Kyrgyzstan and Turkey, thousands of women took the streets demanding greater rights and denouncing violence against women. Japan was the third most active country with 42 ‘Peaceful Protests’, all of which were part of the Flower Demo Movement.

The movement began in March 2019, when a series of acquittals in four sexual assault cases sparked outrage over the legal standard for sexual assault and rape in Japan. In one case, despite the court recognizing that a father physically and sexually abused his daughter, he was acquitted because there was doubt as to whether she was incapable of resisting.

Since then, on the 11th of every month, women gather holding flowers, a symbol of empathy, to speak about their own experiences of sexual violence and urge reforms to Japan’s criminal code. The purpose of the movement can be summarized in the words of Akiko Matsuo, one of its core organizers, “Talking about our unchangeable past will surely change the future.”

The Flower Demo Movement has spread to all 47 prefectures and regions in Japan, with around 1,500 people coming together monthly on average, and has already begun to galvanize reform. For example, the Ministry of Justice announced that they will establish an investigative commission to deliberate penal code revisions pertaining to sexual crimes.

Moved to coincide with International Women’s Day, flower demos occurred in 42 prefectures and cities in Japan on March 8, 2020. It also marked the first anniversary and final gathering of the official Flower Demo. “Today marked an end of a chapter of the (movement), but it is not the end,” said Minori Kitahara, an author and one of the organizers of the demonstration. “Now, it’s society’s turn to change.”

“Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to become themselves?”

When the first reports of COVID-19 cases reached us, we didn’t expect it to spiral into a global pandemic that would profoundly alter our everyday lives. While some of us are struggling with the isolation, household concerns, or the mere discomfort of wearing masks everywhere we go, others, particularly women in countries engaged in sociopolitical crises, are facing severe gender-based discrimination and violence during this time.

With lockdowns and quarantines, we thought there would be less political activity in the COVID-19 Pandemic Burst. We thought wrong. Women were strikingly more active during this challenging period than in the similar period last year. From a two million strong march on International Women’s Day in Chile to protests against femicide in Turkey, women continued to fight for gender equality.

On the flip side, we thought our world would come together in the interest of protecting fundamental human rights, security, health, and economic development. But again, we thought wrong. The world kept turning and violence did not cease despite the pandemic. Violent attacks by gangs in Central and South America, sectarian violence in India, armed conflict in Africa and the Middle East, and other isolated incidents resulted in 360 fatalities in just 106 days.

While the data do demonstrate both uplifting and alarming trends in political protests and violence, respectively, it should be noted that certain events featuring women are not reflected. First, the ACLED data capture political events featuring women or women’s issues and political violence targeting women, but not all the events involving women, nor all political violence against women. The data exclude domestic violence or other forms of non-political violence against women, which intensified. Second, the data do not include all countries, most notably the United States and other Western countries, meaning there was likely more activity than is represented. Third, the fatality numbers are not definitive (and may be disposed to media and political manipulation), nor were all fatalities necessarily women.

In this journey, we have strived to add our voices to the continued fight for the safety, health, education, and empowerment of women and girls globally. Beyond the insightful data, we were inspired by the heroic and shocking stories as a tool for awareness, active engagement, and even self empowerment.

As the pandemic continues to plague the world past our predefined “Pandemic Burst”, we believe that it is possible to keep women and girls worldwide safe from it while promoting and protecting their fundamental rights. What the last few months have shown us is that women should not have to sacrifice themselves and their rights in this pandemic.

Women should be free to protest against gender-based inequality and violence; to work on the frontlines of the pandemic without fear of discrimination or retaliation; to be leaders at all levels of government; and to be themselves. But as the days of the pandemic go by and women continue to be oppressed, harassed, and killed, we should all decide: “Not on our watch.”

We would like to dedicate this project to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an unyielding advocate for Women’s Rights and a hero to both of us.

The post “Not on our watch.” The Spirit of Women Activists and the Political Violence against Them during the COVID-19 Pandemic Burst appeared first on Nightingale.