Resources for Students Experiencing Financial Insecurity

Excerpt from a proposal for The Library Collective's 2020 Connection Conference

In Spring 2019, library faculty and staff at Austin Peay State University’s Woodward Library launched an interactive map of local organizations (within five miles of campus) that could benefit students experiencing food and housing insecurity. The original map was created in Google Maps and embedded in a  LibGuide  to display the location of community shelters, food pantries, and other organizations that provide general assistance with monthly expenses.

This current project is an expansion of our original dataset to include resources in the broader Clarksville, Nashville, and Memphis areas where a large portion of our students come from. We have also transitioned to using ArcGIS StoryMaps, which allows us to add a map layer displaying the location of organizations relative to public transportation routes. 

Additional information

Data collection for this map began as a crowd-sourced project in which conference participants collected the latitude, longitude, and other attribute data for organizations in Nashville and Memphis that could provide services for low-income and un-homed students. Participants were provided with a written outline of instructions and corresponding video tutorials with transcripts for completing the tasks outlined below. They added the information to a shared  Google Form  that was connected to a cloud-based Google Sheet which included previously mapped entries in an ArcGIS-friendly format. This information was used to create a layer in ArcGIS Online. The tools used in this project are freely accessible to anyone and the project can be easily replicated -- see the page on Supplemental Materials for Replicating this Project.

• Green icons represent locations that provide assistance with food, such as food pantries and soup kitchens.
• Blue icons represent local shelters that provide a safe place to sleep.
• Red icons represent organizations that provide general assistance with monthly expenses, SNAP benefits, prescription medicine costs, etc.
• Highlighted streets indicate public transportation routes.
• Click on an icon or highlighted street to learn more about a public service resource or transportation route.

Ellen Brown - browne@apsu.edu

Jenny Harris - harrisj@apsu.edu

Tina Reid - reidt@apsu.edu

Nicole Wood - woodn@apsu.edu