February 2025 Resource Spotlight: PolicyMap

Are you an entrepreneur looking for local customer spending information? Or perhaps your nonprofit organization is searching for statistics to support a grant proposal? For researchers looking for all types of data, the library has a great resource – PolicyMap, opens a new window! Currently, this resource is available for in-library use only at all PLYMC locations.

PolicyMap is an innovative platform that allows users to view data spatially. It starts with a nationwide map and works similar to Google Maps, allowing users to click on the map to zoom in on an area. You can also use the Location search box to type in an address, and the map will immediately zoom into that area. Once you have narrowed down a location, you can use the Boundaries tab to choose multiple boundary data sets, including Counties, Cities, Census Tracts and Zip Codes.

You can create a custom region by clicking on the Custom Regions icon at the end of the Location search box, and then click on Create Region. You can draw a region, assemble a region based on boundaries or create a radius region based around an address. To make it easier to see your custom region, you can use the Clip icon to limit the map data to that region and change the rest of the map to have a white background. 

For your custom region, you can immediately choose to view these three reports: 

• Community Profile 
• Rental House Report 
• Home Mortgage Report 

The reports will be created within a few minutes and can be downloaded as PDF documents. 

To add data to the map, choose from within the various categories along the top of the map: 

• Demographics – provides various population-based data, from general population density to race, age, sex, language and religion. 
• Income & Spending – find data based on income, consumer spending habits, and affordability.
• Housing – data on housing sales, rentals and vacancy.
• Lending – from locations of banks and other lending institutions to types of lending data, such as mortgages and small business loans. 
• Quality of Life – locations of libraries, museums and nonprofits, plus data on crime, internet access, transportation and more. 
• Economy – find data on small business startups, government spending, employment, etc. 
• Education – locations of schools, educational attainment and cost of college data.
• Health – locations of hospitals and other types of medical facilities, plus vital statistics, health conditions, medical costs and insurance data. 
• Federal Guidelines – data based on federal guidelines such as Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) data, New Market Tax Credit (NMTC) and Housing and Urban Development.

To quickly locate a specific type of data, you can type in the Data search box at the top of the screen. Once you have selected that data to view, you will see it appear on the map by color. There are options to customize the colors used. Clicking the source name of the data will open the Data Dictionary where you can learn when the data was last updated. Click the Print icon to export your data as a color-coded PDF map. 

To learn more about PolicyMap, check out some resources available on their website:

• Help docs, opens a new window
• Overview of the new PolicyMap, opens a new window
• Calendar of trainings offered by PolicyMap, opens a new window

Additionally, you can always receive one-on-one help from a librarian! To Book-a-Librarian, call us at 330-744-8636, email ASK@libraryvisit.org, opens a new window, or visit any PLYMC location, opens a new window.