Electronically stored data on libraries, librarians, library users, and the information industry that supports library collections can assist librarians in projecting trends for the future directions of the profession. The purpose of this paper is to direct librarians to a selected list of providers of this data and their publications, particularly those sources that aggregate data in systematic, accessible formats.
Web sites of the organizations that collect data on libraries were examined for data reports generated either from research projects or from periodic reports.
There is a wealth of free data from ongoing research available on the web. In addition, there are proprietary data sets that librarians who need that specialized data should consider acquiring.
LIS professionals require access to current and retrospective data to shape future research and inform decision making.
The article fills the need for an annotated directory to data sources specific to the needs of libraries and procurement information for those sources.
