New vendor partner Data-Planet finds fans among Amigos members

Data-Planet, our newest vendor partner, bills itself as "A Universe of Data at Your Fingertips," and it's easy to see why. Data-Planet Statistical Datasets provide easy access to the largest repository of standardized and structured statistical data. The repository contains over 25 billion data points from more than 75 source organizations, 4.3 billion datasets, 400+ source databases, 16 major subject categories and thousands of descriptors.

Data-Planet facilitates storage, accessibility, usability, maintenance and archiving of statistical data sourced from both third parties and direct from researchers via the Premium Data Hosting Services. This service seamlessly and securely integrates library data in the Data-Planet platform, allowing users to compare and correlate data against the entire Data-Planet repository of statistical datasets in a single, easy-to-use interface.

Amigos member Webster University Library, St. Louis, MO, acquired Data-Planet in 2014 to support the quantitative literacy general education requirement. Since then it has been used extensively across the university. Subject areas from theatre to criminology to photography to business and everything in between have taken advantage of this resource. Jodie Borgerding, Instruction and Liaison Librarian – and current Missouri Library Association President – said she and Emily Scharf, Head of Reference Services, appreciate the support library staff has received from Data-Planet. "The Data-Planet team has been a great resource in helping train Webster University faculty and librarians on how to integrate Data-Planet into the curriculum," she noted.

Last summer Scharf contacted instructors whose courses seemed to align with Data-Planet’s offerings. A criminology instructor teaching a class on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and crime mapping got in touch with her, interested in Data-Planet’s capabilities. "She and I met, and I talked with her about the options available using Data-Planet," Scharf said. "The ability to get clean data, cross-referenced data tables, and ShapeFiles was very appealing to her." Scharf later went to the instructor's class to present Data-Planet. "While I was there, the instructor stressed how much easier the project would be this term as opposed to last term, all because of Data-Planet," noted Scharf. The instructor said that last term her students had to use freely available data files and spend considerable time cleaning them up. This term, the students could focus on their project and learning the concepts of the course because Data-Planet gave them the resources that they needed.

Lindsay Cronk, Coordinator of Online Resources and Collections for the University of Houston Libraries, said that Data-Planet's Data Hosting Services have answered a critical need for library's collection development. She noted that without a clean solution for hosting proprietary data sets, library staff were struggling to provide adequate access to crucial data resources while meeting data set license demands. This placed a burden on the library's data librarian, Web Services, and the Information Technology departments. Working with Data-Planet, Cronk said staff were happily surprised to find a cost-efficient and tailored solution that made their data resources more discoverable. She said the Data-Planet team worked directly with their data vendors to ensure security measures met vendor specifications, and also developed custom visualization frameworks to address the unique structure and properties of the library's data sets.

Cronk was enthusiastic in her assessment of Data-Planet's impact. "Quite frankly," she said, "our ability to acquire diverse data sets has been significantly improved, and our internal processes have also been made easier by our decision to work with Richard Landry, Marcy Rothman, and the terrific Data-Planet team." Cronk is happy to talk with Amigos members considering Data-Planet. "Any other Amigos members wondering about Data-Planet can contact me, lacronk@Central.UH.EDU, if they have questions about University of Houston's collaboration with Data-Planet."

Landry, Founder and CEO of Data-Planet, is likewise enthusiastic about his company and its new partnership with Amigos. "Data-Planet’s Statistical Datasets addresses the growing demand for data by making data easy to find and easy to use. Our enormous data repository offers both academic and institutional researchers one entry point to all types of public and private data with the ability to compare across datasets. We are thrilled to be partnering with Amigos to offer Data-Planet to its member libraries at a very special price."

Amigos Member Discount Services Representative Erica Owusu said Amigos is pleased with the new Data-Planet partnership and sees a growing embrace of the product by member libraries. She invites interested libraries to contact her at 800-843-8482, ext. 2850, or owusu@amigos.org for information about the special pricing available to Amigos members.