Michigan State University

Collection Development Policy Statement: Data

Factors Influencing Collection Policy

A. Anticipated future trends

As emphasis on data-intensive research continues to grow, so will the demand for access to data sets and statistics for secondary analysis. In addition, the burgeoning emphasis on the sharing and publication of research data, as evidenced by grant funder data management plan requirements, will likely create demand for new data publication venues. Institutional memberships may become increasingly important to support disciplinary data archives.

B. Relationships with other resources

1. On campus branch or format collections

  • Business: The Business Library maintains an extensive collection of data and statistical resources that meet the needs of the College of Business including information for marketing, companies, industries, economics, etc.
  • International Documents: Data and statistics from international organizations such as the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and Organization for Economic Cooperation.
  • Map Library: Spatial and GIS data.
  • U.S. Documents: The U.S. government is a major producer of statistics and data.

2. Regional or network resources

Membership in academic institution supported non-profit disciplinary data repositories may be considered as networked resources, such as the ICPSR social science data archive.

C. Relationships to resources treated in other policy statements

  • Social Sciences and Reference: Statistical software manuals and research methods texts, which support analysis of numeric data.
  • Math: Statistical software manuals and quantitative analysis methodology
  • All subject area policy statements: Subject-focused data and statistical sources.