Dr. Kate McDowell’s interdisciplinary work examines how storytelling plays a vital role in humanizing data analysis and communication. She focuses on storytelling as information research and how the history of library storytelling informs data storytelling. Her article “Storytelling Wisdom: Story, information, and DIKW” theorizes storytelling as a fundamental information form. She leads the nationally-funded Data Storytelling Toolkit for Librarians project to equip libraries with narrative tools for data-informed advocacy, which has been used by over 1,000 librarians in over 50 countries so far. As of 2024, she had delivered over a dozen keynotes on her work to nonprofit organizations nationally and internationally and many more informal talks at for state and regional organizations. Her book Critical Data Storytelling for Libraries: Crafting Ethical Narratives for Advocacy and Impact is coming out in August 2025. Her storytelling teaching was internationally celebrated with the ASIS&T Outstanding Information Science Teacher Award in 2022.
Detailed biography: Dr. Kate McDowell focuses on storytelling as information research, social justice storytelling, and how the history of library storytelling can enhance contemporary data storytelling. Her projects engage contexts such as public libraries, non-profit fundraising, and health misinformation in online discourse. This research takes many forms, from publications to storytelling workshops and toolkits to research roles with international coalitions and working groups. McDowell’s writing has appeared in Library Quarterly, College and Research Libraries, and the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, where her article Storytelling wisdom: Story, information, and DIKW theorizes storytelling as a fundamental information form. She has worked with regional, national, and international nonprofits, including the Pan-American Health Organization (part of the WHO), the Public Library Association, and the Research Institute for Public Libraries. McDowell leads the nationally-funded Data Storytelling Toolkit for Librarians project, currently in development to equip public libraries with the narrative tools they need to thrive in the data-driven era.
McDowell is associate professor at the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA. There she teaches both storytelling and data storytelling, and was an early leader in online education, earning Illinois’ Excellence in Online & Distance Teaching Award in 2018. In 2022, McDowell’s teaching was internationally celebrated with the ASIS&T Outstanding Information Science Teacher Award. In addition to her current role, she formerly served as Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Assistant Dean for Student Affairs, and has led multiple transformative projects for the School.