Help Obtaining Data is Available from the Library – Commons Knowledge: Insights from the Scholarly Commons

This fall marks the fifth annual Data Purchase Program, where the University Library accepts applications from campus researchers for purchasing data that will be useful to them in their research. The data must under $5,000, must be used for teaching or research, and it must be available to all of campus. Some vendors are only willing to sell access for one person, but often we can negotiate campus access.

The library has purchased a large variety of data: from tax assessor’s data for the Chicago area to satellite imagery of a river in Argentina and the locations of villages in the state of Himachal Pradesh, India. A full list of purchased data is on the program description page at http://www.library.illinois.edu/sc/datagis/purchase/description2014.html.

The deadline for first consideration is September 29, but the Data Services Committee will consider applications that come in later as long as we have funds available and can complete the purchase by the end of the fiscal year.

If you are interested in applying for the Data Purchase Program, the online application is at https://illinois.edu/fb/sec/9886260. If you have questions about the program or need help identifying data for your research, please contact Karen Hogenboom, Numeric and Spatial Data Librarian, at hogenboo@illinois.edu. We look forward to connecting you with the data you need!