We have curated a large database of X-ray absorption spectra for phase-pure lithiated transition metal oxides with well-defined lithiation stoichiometries. The database is used to aid rapid identification of compositional, phase, and stress heterogeneities in individual particles and across ensembles of particles using powerful synchrotron-based hyperspectral imaging techniques. In an article in the Cell Press journal Patterns, we demonstrate the application of this material to a canonical positive electrode material in the context of monitoring the origins of degradation mechanisms in battery electrodes. The spectral database and toolsets for accelerated characterization combining singular value decomposition, principal-component analysis, k-means clustering, and linear combination fitting have been made available as Mendeley datasets.