The Collections as Data initiative aims to expand the uses of archival data collections by making them more accessible, particularly in forms ready for computationally driven research and teaching. This initiative makes the data from these collections available so that researchers and the public can engage with them.

In this episode, we have the pleasure of speaking with Daria Orlowska, Data Librarian at Western Michigan University, about her collections as data work where she not only worked with others to develop structured datasets from historical records, but also leveraged this collection to create data literacy curriculum.

Daria Orlowska is a data librarian and assistant professor at Western Michigan University. As a former behavioral sciences research assistant, she bases her data education on first-hand experience with the frustration of managing data. In her current position, Daria advises on data management plans, creates data education resources and experiential workshop, provides consultations on data management, finding secondary data, and data project workflows, and advocates for researcher data needs. In addition, she helps curate datasets from archival collections that serve as data literacy teaching tools for college undergraduates and K-12 students alike. She holds an MSLIS from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.


You can find all three lessons on OSF:
- Third grade lesson: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/F5HRA
- Eighth grade lesson: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/5BH92
- Undergraduate lesson: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/PHZNK

The lessons are licensed under CC0, with the hope that others will adapt, remix, or reuse them. When work on the new Michigan Memories portal completes (https://michmemories.org/), we hope to see them there as well.
We used the Record of passing vessels at the South Haven light-station from 1878-1882 log as a basis for all three of our lessons. The original scanned primary source can be found in Western Michigan University's online collection (https://luna.library.wmich.edu/luna/servlet/detail/WMUwmu~90~90~1246014~154475:Record-of-passing-vessels-at-the-So). A transcribed version of this document can be found within Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/records/8044702).