LIBRARY GUIDE TO EC 6996 - Research Project Phase II

 As you think about taking your collected data and making some sort of visual representation, it's important to consider your purpose. That is, what do you want to convey to others? What do you want to show or demonstrate by making your collected information into some sort of visual representation? When considering purpose, it's also important to think about the:

• Context: How are others going to view your visualization -- as part of a presentation, in a paper, or in another format? Will you be present to give the data some context, or will others be viewing your visualization without you there to explain?
• Kind of data to represent: Have you collected statistical information, or did you transcribe interviews? Have you collected a series of images? These different information sources will lead to different kinds of data visualizations. Generally, quantitative information

From these considerations of purpose, context, and the kind of information you want to represent, you can begin to think about how you can best present your data. If you have quantitative (number) information to show, this chart may help you to consider how you can make your information visually clear and appealing:

If you want to represent qualitative data -- which is, simply put, more word- or narrative-based -- it may also be worthwhile to discuss your data source, purpose, and context with your professor / librarian to brainstorm ideas for the best ways to represent qualitative information. This isn't as clear-cut as representing numbers in a chart form, so don't hesitate to ask for help!

• American FactFinder
• Census of the United States
• Data.gov (U.S. Government's open data)
• Data and Statistics about the United States
• FRASER - Economic Indicators, Budget of the United States, and more
• FRED - Federal Reserve Economic Data
• Kids Count - a wealth of stats on children
• Statistical Abstract of the United States (Proquest)
• USA.gov - Data and Statistics
• Vital Statistics on Congress

Country Information

• BBC Country Profiles
• CIA World Factbook
• Constitution Finder - Univ of Richmond
• Countries & Their Cultures
• Country Studies - Library of Congress
• International Monetary Fund
• OECD - Country Pages
• Population Reference Bureau
• U.S. Bilateral Relations Fact Sheets (formerly called Background Notes/Country Fact Sheets)
• U.S. State Department, Senior Officials, Chiefs of Mission

Some tools for data visualization include:

• Juice Labs' chart chooser -- resource that helps select the right kind of chart / graph, and downloads a template for use in Excel
• Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice Calc (free) -- simple tools that can create most types of charts / graphs
• IBM's Many Eyes -- online tool that can create charts / graphs
• Google Fusion Tables or Google Charts -- online resources that can generate a variety of charts / graphs from independent data sets or from Google Docs
• Tableau Public -- a tool to create interactive graphs, maps, and tables that can be viewed on the web 
• Wordle, Tagxedo, and IBM Word-Cloud Generator -- resources that can create word clouds to represent the frequency of terms used
• Timeline.js or TimeRime -- resources that creates online interactive timelines (note: these exist online only -- cannot be embedded in a document or resource)
• Thinglink -- online resource to annotate images
• Infogr.am and Piktochart -- online resources to create infographics
• draw.io -- online flowchart creation tool

Duke University Libraries, which have a department of Data and Visualization Services, offer many resources that may be helpful to you:

• Data and visualization guides -- resources on how to use particular tools / resources
• About data visualization -- a good basic introduction to what data visualization means, and different ways to think about visualizing information
• Designing a Visualization -- this resource can be very helpful as you consider how you want to express your data in visual form