The Catalyst, the digital scholarship space inside Parks Library, will be hosting events for International Love Data Week Feb. 12-16. This event falls on the week of Valentine’s Day for all data lovers. The theme of the event will be “My Kind of Data: Data is Personal,” and is led by the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research located at the University of Michigan.

“This is the first year that [the] ISU library has decided to participate in the activities for the week,” Erin Ridnour, Iowa State librarian, said. “It’s really just a celebration to bring awareness around various issues related to data. So, data ethics, data management, data organization, things like that.”

Love Data Week will feature events including a data visualization contest, where students can create a data set, and then find a way to creatively display the visual interpretation. Judges will be looking for creativity, originality, clarity, visual interest and consistency regarding the theme.

The data visualization contest will be open to both undergraduate and graduate students and will offer a cash prize for the winners. First place will be awarded $150, with second place awarded $75 and third $50.

“I’m most excited about the opportunity to bring students into the Catalyst space in the library because this is a relatively new space,” Ridnour said. “I think this is a great way to do that, to kind of have a little bit of fun aligned with Valentine’s Day. To bring people in with hot chocolate on our Friday wrap parties and actually sit in the space and experience it.”

The event will also feature a data-themed book display near the entrance of Parks Library, and two drop-in sessions titled “Research Methods Meet Up” from noon-1 p.m. Feb. 12 and “Tidy Data Salon” from noon-1 p.m Feb. 14.

To learn more about Love Data Week or the data visualization contest, look to the Iowa State University Library website.