Update 2026-01-08-plans-for-2026.md

Author: DaveBathnes

_posts/2026-01-08-plans-for-2026.md

@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ How can this be done in 2026?
 
 Open data is data that anyone can access, use, and share. Public libraries hold huge amounts of data, while not having the resources or time to do much with it. More should be invested in service skills and time, but it would be a huge benefit to make data as widely available as possible. It is also fair to say that despite libraries being wonderful and much loved, a lack of data-informed policy and decisions is consistently evident.
 
-Unfortunately times are tough, and engaging in open data is out of the reach of many services. Heads of those service don't have the time or inclination, while fighting declining budgets and trying to keep staff employed and branches open. Where data analysis _is_ being done, it's often in advocacy and social value analysis that rarely delivers either insight or improvement, driven from a need to convince funders that libraries are worthwhile.
+Unfortunately times are tough, and engaging in open data is out of the reach of many services. Heads of service don't have the time or inclination, while fighting declining budgets and trying to keep staff employed and branches open. Where data analysis _is_ being done, it's often in advocacy and social value analysis that rarely delivers either insight or improvement, driven by a need to convince funders that libraries are worthwhile.
 
 There is rarely active hostility to being open. We'd all love a culture of open working to improve services. Good data standards and open schemas for sharing, responsible data management and stewardship, and policies of open by default (aside from personal data). The data would be available through public APIs (application programming interfaces) and data downloads. But we don't have those things, and that level of data maturity is a long task. That means it should be a high priority, and we need to continue trying to convince people that better data, made widely available, can make a huge difference. And crucially, making it open is the *essential* part of that. It's not a nice to have, or a good thing for transparency, it's the key to making use of that data.