The National Recreation and Park Association has created a new virtual library offering a collection of publicly available databases and visualizations for park and recreation professionals and advocates.
Park and recreation agencies need data to help tell their stories, answer key questions, and inform decision-making. Fortunately, the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA) recently created a new Data and Mapping Resource Library that offers a collection of relevant, publicly available databases and visualizations curated for park and recreation professionals and advocates. These public resources serve as a starting point for exploring data on a variety of topics.
As NRPA's Austin Barrett explain in this post, the library is organized by “Categories” and “Topics.” The four categories included are: 1) Social and Demographic Factors, 2) Health and Wellness, 3) Environmental Resiliency and 4) Park Access and Information. Topics are more specific and cover a range of different subject areas ranging from: “Age and Gender” to “Environmental Quality” to “Social and Economic Equity.” Users may further narrow resources by using the “Filter by” functionality on the right-hand side of the library.
A four-minute training video is also provided below that demonstrates how to access, filter and use the data resources in the library.
Read the full story: Data: The Next Frontier
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