Washington State's data.wa.gov platform provides a record of public library system service changes and closures at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Information was gathered primarily from library websites and social media accounts, with occasional communication from library staff. The dataset was last updated on June 9, 2022.
Use Cases
- Analyze the timeline of service suspensions by comparing FullClosureAnnounced and FullClosureEffective dates across Library systems.
- Study the adoption of virtual services by correlating VirtualServiceAnnounced and VirtualService columns with other closure dates.
- Compare different mitigation strategies, such as Distancing, ExtraCleaning, and Outreach, by examining their respective announced and effective date columns.
Strengths
- Dataset provides a structured, column-specific record of multiple service change types (e.g., closures, virtual services, distancing).
- Data provenance is documented, sourced from official library communications like websites and social media.
Limitations
- Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
- Last updated 2022-06-09 00:03:10; freshness should be verified.
Provenance
- Source
- data.wa.gov
- Collection Method
- Information comes primarily from library websites and social media accounts, and occasional communication with library staff.
- Time Range
- Beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.
- Freshness
- 2022-06-09 00:03:10
- Geography
- Washington State, United States.