VCU Libraries Tompkins-McCaw Library for the Health Sciences will host this webinar from the Medical Library Association. This event will take place at the Tompkins-McCaw Library in Richmond, Virginia. 

Visualization can be a powerful and compelling way to convey information and to reveal complex patterns in data. Many libraries are beginning to explore how they can help their users develop skills in creating visualizations and provide services and tools for creating visualizations. This webinar will provide an introduction to best practices for creating visualizations, drawing on design theory and principles, visual perception, and the “Grammar of Graphics” framework for visualization. Viewers will also learn about how to select the right visualization tool or software for the job and where to learn more to expand their visualization tool box.

Objectives: After viewing this webinar, attendees will understand how to:

• convey complex data using visualization
• use principles of design to create visually appealing and informative visualizations
• create highly customized visualizations based on the “Grammar of Graphics”
• identify tools and software that can be used to design a variety of different types of visualizations
• plan to create a visualization service at their library
• find resources to learn more about creating visualizations

Lisa Federer currently serves as research data informationist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Library, Bethesda, MD, where she provides training and support in the management, organization, and reuse of biomedical research data and is a colead for the NIH Library’s new Data Visualization Service. She is the author of several peer-reviewed articles and an e-book on new roles for librarians in supporting research and data management. A member of MLA since 2009, she has served the organization in a variety of capacities at the national and local level, including as a member of the MLA Futures Task Force (January 2013–October 2014), an MLA ’12 blog correspondent, and chair of the Plenary Speaker Committee for the Medical Library Group of Southern California and Arizona/Northern California and Nevada Medical Library Group 2013 Joint Meeting. She holds a master’s of library and information science from the University of California–Los Angeles and a master’s of arts in English from the University of North Texas.