by Fiacre O’Duinn
Science by the People:
Public Librarians Meet Citizen Scientists
Citizen science in the library
The relationship between public libraries and citizen
science goes back to our origins as an institution. The
original Mechanics’ Institutes founded across Canada
during the nineteenth century gave tradespeople an
opportunity to extend their technical and scientific
education beyond what was required by their professions
by providing lectures, training, and reading rooms for
members. As public interest in the sciences diminished,
the Mechanics’ Institutes experienced falling membership
and were transformed into public libraries.
With the rise of hacker– and makerspaces, and the
growing interest among librarians in bringing hacker
culture to their institutions, public libraries are returning
to these roots and once again have the opportunity to
attract the citizen scientist. We can become involved
with this community at a number of levels, from offering
new skills to providing access to equipment. However,
due to the changing nature of what citizen science
means, who can participate, and where the borders
should be drawn regarding expertise, we also have an
opportunity to act as a catalyst for change in how our
communities understand and engage with science and
technology.
What is citizen science?
Defining exactly what constitutes citizen science
can be problematic, because within the field there is
much diversity, including concerns around credibility,
safety, and even legality.1 However, we can roughly
break citizen science into three broad divisions,
acknowledging that these divisions can overlap and
that individuals often move between divisions
depending on their changing level of participation in
a particular scientific project.
First, there is the citizen scientist who acts as a
consumer of scientific research, seeking information
to solve practical problems, to instruct themselves and
family members, or to engage their own curiosity.
An example of this form of citizen science is the rising
14 Canadian Library Association
Theme Feature
availability of companies offering services for individuals
to engage in “recreational genetics” by having their
DNA analyzed to research their ancestry or look for
health or carrier risks.
Second is the citizen scientist who acts as a recorder
of data. This is the most popular form of citizen science
and the most common understanding of the term. This
citizen scientist is a volunteer in a funded scientific
research project. He or she acts as an instrument of
the scientist, rather than as a leader and originator of
the research, by gathering or organizing data. There are
many opportunities for the citizen scientist to engage in
these scientist-led projects. Examples of these projects
range from classifying galaxies online via Galaxy Zoo
to counting birds to help collect real-time data for the
annual Great Backyard Bird Count.
Third is the citizen scientist who acts as a creator
and partner, participating in science not as a passive
consumer or useful instrument but rather as a potential
colleague by not only collecting but also analyzing and
acting on data. With the rise of the hacker and maker
movements, the availability of affordable hardware
and software, and the ease of communication via the
Internet, this third option is becoming not only more
common but is also engaging with meaningful research
problems.2
Perhaps the most famous example of this form of
citizen science can be seen in the Tokyo Hackerspace’s
response to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in
2011.3 Frustrated with the availability and accuracy of
radiation data, the Tokyo Hackerspace organized a
research group under the name Safecast within a week
of the event and gathered a team of experts from
around the world to develop a radiation measuring tool.
They gave the completed device, which they named
bGeigie, to volunteers to mount on their cars to take
radiation readings. They made the collected data
accessible to the public via the Internet and also
performed their own analysis. To date, Safecast has
www.cla.ca Feliciter • Issue #1 • February, 2014 • Vol. 60

collected and mapped more than thirteen million data
points, and in March 2013 the group created the bGeigie
Nano kit, which can be put together by anyone with a
soldering iron in a few hours and is carried around on
one’s person.
Why should libraries participate?
Libraries and librarians already offer aid to the citizen
scientist, not only by giving access to research for the
consumer of science, but also by providing training in
basic computer skills and access to the Internet for data
collectors and analyzers. However, as libraries begin to
open hacker or maker spaces in their institutions, they
create opportunities to engage with the third form of
citizen scientist, the creator. But why would this be of
interest to libraries?
Libraries are concerned with people’s access to
knowledge. Put simply, participation in more complex
science projects increases scientific literacy in profound
ways. Libraries can become intermediaries, offering
unique opportunities for translation between scientific
knowledge developed by research institutions and the
everyday interests and problems of ordinary people and
their communities.
Second, libraries would have a means to democratize
science and to engage and provide access for various
kinds of people, each with their own background,
motivation, and interests. We know that the community
of science often fails to reflect our communities in
terms of socioeconomic, gender, or ethnic divisions.
For example, by engaging with the citizen scientist as
creator, we can begin to counteract the paucity not only
of women scientists, but also of scientific research
designed by women that reflects the interests of
women.
Finally, we have the opportunity to participate in the
development of an alternative to the closed and limited
nature of scientific research as it now stands, instead
offering a form of science that is truly community-led.
Public librarians, in supporting bottom-up projects,
could allow the public to examine and evaluate various
versions of how they want to engage or respond to
issues related to technologies. The direct experience
of developing science projects to foster relations in a
community both inside and outside the library, even
around the world as seen with Safecast, offers a model
for decision-making different from the traditional
model, in which a divide exists between those doing
Feliciter • Issue #1 • February, 2014 • Vol. 60
Theme Feature
the research and those representing the interests of the
citizens. With the rise of the citizen scientist, these can
become one and the same.
Librarian as citizen scientist
If libraries want to engage the citizen scientist, how
should we move forward? Perhaps the easiest way is
for librarians to become citizen scientists themselves.
Public librarians should begin to move away from the
safety offered by the institution and ask what questions
they can answer with their communities rather than
for them. In the shift from “science for the people” to
“science by the people,” librarians and libraries can
act as a catalyst in driving this transformation forward,
offering not only training in basic skills and access
to equipment for public-led science projects, but
much-needed legitimacy.4
Fiacre O’Duinn (fmoduinn@gmail.com) is a public
librarian living in Burlington, Ontario with an interest
in digital justice, hacker/maker culture, DIYBio, and
emerging technologies.
Notes
1. Christopher M. Kelty, “Outlaws, Hackers, Victorian
Amateurs: Diagnosing Public Participation in the
Life Sciences Today,” Journal of Scientific
Communication 9, no. 1 (2010), 1-3.
2. Greg Newman, Andrea Wiggins, Alycia Crall, Eric
Graham, Sarah Newman, and Kevin Crowston, “The
Future of Citizen Science: Emerging Technologies
and Shifting Paradigms,” Frontiers in Ecology and
the Environment 10 (2012): 298-301.
3. Ashley Rose Kelly, “Hackerspaces and Hacking
Science,” PLOS Blogs Network (blog), May 6, 2013,
accessed January 5, 2014,
http://blogs.plos.org/citizensci/2013/05/06/hackerspa-
ces-and-hacking-science/.
4. Jonathan Silvertown, “A New Dawn for Citizen
Science,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 24, no. 9
(2009), 4.
www.cla.ca Canadian Library Association 15
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without
permission.