The folks over at CPANDA (Cultural Policy & the Arts National Data Archive…when you discuss it at cocktail parties, the acronym is pronounced ‘see’-‘panda’) have redesigned their web site in an effort to make arts and cultural research more engaging for a wider world.
The site still primarily serves as a warehouse for research datasets of previous studies, made available to researchers interested in running their own queries on the numbers. Not a practice for the faint of heart.
But CPANDA also seeks to make research findings accessible and useful to practitioners, policy makers, and supporters, with overviews of available studies in various categories, guides to evaluating research, and ‘quick facts‘ sifted from the data.
So, if you ever wanted to know how many people participate in arts and cultural activities, or who attends classical music concerts, or how many artists there are in the U.S., or how supportive Americans are of arts education in the public schools, you’ve found your resource.
It’s worth a browse. And it might just be the incentive you need to purchase that statistical analysis software you’ve had your eye on.