For the purposes of this assignment, i have settled on looking at data about libraries. This data set was chosen above others in that it both was accessible, for the most part appropriately formatted, and had the potential to offer interesting insights about the state of libraries in the United States.

The data are from a study of 51 libraries by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. It can be found here:

Staff, Resources, and Use

Financial Information

Follows is an infographic of some data I drew from these files.

The “Library Profitability” metric was derived from the difference between the total financial aid received by the library, and the library’s revenue, measured in dollars. In producing this graph, I cropped out two points- outliers, one being a library with exceptional attendence, and the other being a library with minimal attendance, and a negative income.

The inclusion of “Direct funding for Internet Resources” was to see if well funded internet accessibility had any bearing on attendance. Looking at the data as it stands, this does not seem to be the case, just as there is no identifyable connection between direct funding and the library’s revenue.

Again, simply by looking, I’m tempted to also conclude that there is no correlation between attendence and profitability. However- There exist profitable, well attended libraries, profitable poorly-attended libraries, and less profitable poorly attended libraries, but there seem to be no well attended, non-profitable libraries. I’m tempted to use this to justify some low level of correlation, but a larger data set would be neccessary to draw such conclusions.