Harker library director Sue Smith recently completed the first major milestone of a two-year grant project with the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Working with researchers from the University of Michigan School of Information, Smith acted as the team’s curriculum expert, whose duty was to “develop resources and curricula for various topics within the grant.”

The project, which began in October 2015 and is titled “Data Literacy for High School Librarians,” aims to help school librarians develop greater data and statistical literacy so that they can in turn promote these skills in students. One of the project’s major milestones was a two-day virtual conference on the topics of literacy, data as argument and data visualization. More than 400 teachers and librarians from all over the world viewed the conference.

One of the next major goals of the project is to publish a book on the topics being researched. Smith already has contributed a chapter to the book, a draft of which is scheduled to be published at the end of the grant’s first year. The project is expected to conclude in September 2017.