Clark Family Library: Computing and Information Studies: Finding Data

What is data?

Data is "information in digital form that can be transmitted or processed" ("data, noun, often attributive." Merriam Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/data. Accessed October 10, 2022.).

Data is a core building block of our digital information systems. It is also increasingly a commodity. It's important to think about how and why data you are using was collected, or how and why you are collecting data yourself. Below is a resource about how to think consciously and ethically about data collection.

Respectful Collection of Data
This article from mathematician Sarai Rosenberg breaks down how to respectfully work with personal and demographic data.

Data Resources

Berkeley SDA (Survey Documentation and Analysis)
SDA is a toolkit for data analysis created by the Computer-assisted Survey Methods Program at the University of California, Berkeley. SDA also contains an archive with several datasets.
Data.gov
If you don't know what agency to start with, use this government data portal.
Data.world
Data.world is a data solution company. However, you can also access lots of data from their site.
Data Is Plural — Structured Archive
A crowdsourced archive of datasets organized by topic. The crowdsourced nature of the repository means that the repository covers a wide range of topics, including some that would be difficult to find with other data finding tools.
EU Open Data Portal
The European Union Open Data Portal (EU ODP) gives you access to open data published by EU institutions and bodies. All the data you can find via this catalogue are free to use and reuse for commercial or non-commercial purposes.
Google Dataset Search
You can search for a topic or repository/publisher using this dataset search tool from Google.
Google Public Data Explorer
Google's Public Data Explorer provides public data and forecasts from a range of international organizations and academic institutions including the World Bank, OECD, Eurostat and the University of Denver. These can be displayed as line graphs, bar graphs, cross sectional plots or on maps.
Government of Canada Open Data
Search open data that is relevant to Canadians, learn how to work with datasets, and see what people have done with open data across the country.
Kaggle
Kaggle is a free tool that hosts a repository of datasets and provides users tools to develop their own data models. Kaggle also has tutorials on subjects such as machine learning.
Our World in Data
Our World in Data is a free global development website whose purpose is to collect, visualize, and share “research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems.” Affiliated with the University of Oxford, operated by the nonprofit organization Global Change Data Lab, and launched in 2014, the website is designed for a global audience, including scholars, journalists, policymakers, educators, and schoolchildren. The website reportedly sees more than 1 million visits per month and has been cited hundreds of times in research and the media.

Our World in Data contains more than 3,000 interactive charts and dozens of articles across 297 topics. Ten categories ranging from “Energy and Environment” to “Violence and War” enable visitors to drill down to topics such as “Homicides” and “Environmental impacts of food production.” Each topic features interactive charts with annotations and sources. Searchability is basic, limited to browsing by topic, filtering charts by title, or doing a keyword search across the entire website. Topic entries are lengthy and sometimes difficult to skim. Ability to filter information by region, country, and dates would help visitors find what they need more quickly. Visitors can download charts as PNG or SVG images and export datasets in spreadsheet-ready CSV format. Our World in Data’s spin-off site, Sustainable Development Goals Tracker, uses these data to track progress toward the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, set to be achieved by 2030.

Founder Max Roser’s stated aim is to use statistical data to combat doom-and-gloom media coverage that fosters cynicism and apathy among citizens. The worldview behind Our World in Data aligns with psychologist Steven Pinker’s hotly debated claims in The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (2011). Sure enough, the website repeatedly quotes Pinker and cites his work as a data source. While Our World in Data claims not to cherry-pick or omit data, visitors should recognize its bias in favor of a narrative of steady human progress.

Our World in Data makes it easier to access, share, and understand statistical data that reveal trends in global development. Visualizations are posted under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, allowing anyone to share and adapt the content freely. Biases are disclosed and sources cited. While the raw data are widely available elsewhere, the website’s broad coverage, open access, and countless charts and graphs make it exceptionally useful to researchers and citizens.—Michael Rodriguez, University of Connecticut ACRL Internet Review April 2020
Pennsylvania State Data Center
A repository for data relating to Pennsylvania hosted by Penn State.
Pew Research Center
This nonpartisan fact tank conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and more.
Pew Research Center - Survey Data
Pew Research Center makes its data available to the public for secondary analysis after a period of time.
UCI Machine Learning Repository
A repository of datasets that are well suited for machine learning and AI training assembled by University of California, Irvine.
UNData
Provides 15 databases from different UN agencies covering agriculture, health, human development, communication technology, industry, population, refugees, trade and tourism.
UNICEF Data
Welcome to data.unicef.org. This website is a gateway to reliable and open data and analysis on the situation of children and women worldwide.
US News & World Report Magazine Archive
Covers 1926-1984
Western PA Regional Data Center
The Western PA Regional Data Center is a repository of open data created by and pertaining to the region.

APA Data Links
Provides a list of links to data sets and repositories from psychological research.
Census Bureau
Census Bureau provides data about the nation's people and economy.
CESSDA - Council of European Social Science Data Archives
CESSDA member organisations serve some 30,000+ social science and humanities researchers and students within the European Research Area each year, providing access to 25,000 data collections, delivering over 70,000 data collections per annum and acquiring a further 1,000 data collections each year.
Comparative Political Data - Carleton College
This research guide created by librarians at Carleton College's Lawrence McKinley Gould Library provides a wealth of data resources on a variety of topics from government to regional data to environmental data to economic data and everything in between. You can use the side navigation tab to switch between topics. Please ignore any resources that have a penguin icon next to them, as those require a Carleton login to access.
General Social Survey (GSS)
GSS is a representative study of adults in the US that has been ongoing since 1972. It is conducted by the nonpartisan and objective research organization, NORC at the University of Chicago.

ICPSR This link opens in a new window
ICPSR, the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, offers a large social science data archive. It acts as a global leader in data stewardship and providing rich data resources in sociology. ICPSR.

IPUMS USA
Provides US Census data, including decennial censuses from 1790 to 2010 and American Community Surveys (ACS) from 2000 to the present.
PEW Research Center Politics and Policy
Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research.

PolicyMap This link opens in a new window
Data and mapping application that provides access to over 60,000 indicators related to demographics, housing, crime, mortgages, health, jobs and more that enables creation of maps, tables, and reports.

LobbyView
A comprehensive database of lobbying/special interest contributions in American politics from 1999-present. They have easy to use search functions, visualizations, and data available for download. LobbyView is run by Dr. In Song Kim and his team at MIT, and is co-sponsored by MIT, the National Science Foundation, and the Russel Sage Foundation.
Qualitative Data Repository
Project hosted at Syracuse University that curates and hosts data from qualitative social science projects.
US Census Data
Statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, including data from censuses and surveys.
Voteview
Voteview is a data visualization resource that allows users to view congressional roll call votes on a map of the United States and on a liberal-conservative ideological map.
White House - Open Data
This site contains various datasets released to the White House.

Federal Reserve Board Data
A repository of Federal Reserve data organized into a variety of topics such as Bank Assets, Household Finance, and Interest Rates.
Federal Reserve Economic Data - FRED - St. Louis Fed
Federal Reserve Economic Data. You can download, graph, and track 213,000 US and international time series from 65 sources. Includes CPI, GDP, employment and much more.
Gender Equality Data and Statistics: The World Bank
This gender data portal is a one-stop shop for gender information, catering to a wide range of users and providing data from a variety of sources. Data at the country level are organized under six thematic headings, which are aligned to the themes identified by the Inter-agency and Expert Group on Gender Statistics.
International Monetary Fund Data
Provides a range of time series data on IMF lending, exchange rates and other economic and financial indicators.

OECD: Economic Surveys 2014-2020 This link opens in a new window
This collection of periodic reviews provides a comprehensive analysis of developments in the subject country, along with individual chapters covering key economic challenges. Years covered 2014-2020. OECD.

OECD Data
USDA Economic Research Service
World Bank - Data indicators
The World Bank offers detailed data about people, environment, economy, states and markets, and global links.
Yahoo Finance Market Data

Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ) mission is to produce evidence to make health care safer, higher quality, more accessible, equitable, and affordable, and to work within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and with other partners to make sure that the evidence is understood and used.
Ambulatory Health Care Data - NAMCS
NHAMCS survey is designed to collect data on the utilization and provision of ambulatory care services in hospital emergency and outpatient departments.
CDC Data and Statistics
The CDC's Data and Statistics portal.
CDC Wonder
CDC Wonder is a repository of public health data curated around several subjects including Chronic Conditions, Communicable Diseases, Health Practice and Prevention, and more.
Global Heath Exchange
Global Health Exchange is a repository of health-related data including surveys, censuses, and vital statistics from around the world.
Health and Human Services Department - LGBT Data
This site provides link to data sets related to LGBT health.
HealthData.Gov
The Department of Health and Human Services' Health Data portal aimed at increasing accessibility for researchers.
Household Products Database - Health and Safety Information on Household Products
This site provides facts about common household products. It discusses possible safety hazards and health effects. You can enter the name of a household product and the site provides explanations about ingredients and health information related to automotive products, landscaping, pesticides, pet care products, products used during arts and crafts, personal care and home maintenance.
Incluset
Incluset is a data repository of accessibility data designed to connect researchers and the disability community. It was developed by the University of Maryland, College Park and is supported by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research.
National Center for Health Statistics
The National Center for Health Statistics is part of the CDC. They conduct regular health surveys, which are available online along with other health-related datasets.
RWJF DataHub - Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
The RWJF DataHub tracks state-level data and allows users to customize and visualize facts and figures on key health and health care topics. It's part of the Foundation’s commitment to providing timely, accessible information and evidence to inform policies and practices that help Americans lead healthier lives and get the care they need. It establishes a system of priority measures for monitoring state-level progress toward improving the nation’s health and health care.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Data and Dissemination
SAMHA is a subset of the US Department of Health and Human Services. This data search tool can be helpful for finding data related to substance abuse, mental illness, or the treatments for either of the former two topics.
WHO Global Health Observatory Data
WHO's gateway to health-related statistics for its 194 Member States. The aim of the GHO portal is to provide easy access to: country data and statistics with a focus on comparable estimates; and WHO’s analyses to monitor global, regional and country situation and trends.
WHO Mental Health Data
WHO collects and reports statistics on well-being, mental health and neurological disorders from around the world.

Ecological Data Wiki
This wiki is a collection of open ecological datasets sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
EPA Enforcement Data and Results
The US Environmental Protection Agency's hub for data concerning their enforcement of climate related policies.
NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database - NASA
NASA's NED is a comprehensive database of multiwavelength data for extragalactic objects, providing a systematic, ongoing fusion of information integrated from hundreds of large sky surveys and tens of thousands of research publications. Offers many links to research tools.
Natural Hazards Data
National Geophysical Data Center archives and assimilates tsunami, earthquake and volcano data to support research, planning. response and mitigation. Long-term data, including photographs, can be used to establish the history of natural hazard occurrences and help mitigate against future events.
NIST Physical Reference Data
Physical Measurement Laboratory offers links to program information, speeches, testimony, frequently asked questions.
NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center
SWPC is part of the National Weather Service and is the nation's official source of space weather alerts, watches and warnings. SWPC provides real-time monitoring and forecasting of solar and geophysical events which impact satellites, power grids, communications, navigation, and many other technological systems.
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information
NOAA's (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) National Centers for Environmental Information is a hub of atmospheric, coastal, geophysical, and oceanic research/data, as well as general environmental data.
NOAA National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC)
NGDC provides stewardship, products, and services for geophysical data from our Sun to Earth and Earth's sea floor and solid earth environment, including Earth observations from space.
PLANTS Database
Database provides standardized information about the vascular plants, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, and lichens of the U.S. and its territories. It includes names, plant symbols, checklists, distributional data, species abstracts, characteristics, images, crop information, automated tools, onward Web links, and references.
Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC)
The Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) is a measure of overall progress towards environmental sustainability. The index provides a composite profile of national environmental stewardship based on a compilation of indicators derived from underlying datasets. This Web site provides access to the ESI report, underlying data, and associated maps for the Pilot 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2005 versions of the ESI. The documents made available here provide in-depth details on the analytical framework, quantitative methodology, and data sources that underlie each edition of the ESI.
U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information Data Explorer
This data explorer searches for data from research funded by the Department of Energy. It's a helpful tool to find publicly-funded scientific research from research institutions around the country.
USGS National Geologic Map Database
National Geologic Map database offers stratigraphic, topographic and geologic maps.
USGS Water Data for the Nation
The US Geological Survey (USGS)'s data hub for water conditions, water flow, water quality, water use, and more.

Association of Religion Data Archives
Provides American and international data collections and developing features for educators, journalists, religious congregations, and researchers.
College Scorecard - United States Department of Education
College Scorecard is a resource created by the Department of Education to help high school students make an informed decision about where to attend college. The data behind the tool is also publicly available. You can download institutional data, field of study data, and comparison data with other higher educational data surveys.
Department of Education Data and Research
UNICEF Education Data
World Bank Education Data

Sports Data Resources - American Statistical Association
This collection of sports datasets from the ASA (American Statistical Association) is a great place to get started if you are looking for data related to sports or athletics.

Resources for Text Mining

Voyant Tools
Voyant Tools is a free, open-source, online application for performing text analysis.
Voyant Tools Help Repository
Voyant Tools has a rich help database to help you use and troubleshoot the tool. This link goes to the article on creating a corpus, the key component to getting started with Voyant Tools.
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is a repository of over 60,000 ebooks of works in the U.S. public domain.
Europeana
Europeana is a cultural heritage repository funded by the European Union. Many of the works available in the repository are open access or published with Creative Commons licenses, but double check a resource or dataset's copyright status before using it.
Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)
DPLA brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world. It strives to contain the full breadth of human expression, from the written word, to works of art and culture, to records of America’s heritage, to the efforts and data of science. The DPLA aims to expand this crucial realm of openly available materials, and make those riches more easily discovered and more widely usable and used. It is a portal that delivers students, teachers, scholars, and the public to incredible resources on a platform that enables new and transformative uses of our digitized cultural heritage. Many of the digitized resources in DPLA are in the public domain or are published with Creative Commons licenses, but double check a resource or dataset's copyright status before using it.
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library. Its purposes include offering permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format. Many of the resources on Internet Archive are in the public domain or are published with Creative Commons licenses, but double check a resource or dataset's copyright status before using it.

Women Writers Project This link opens in a new window
Search or browse a growing list of rare or lesser known English texts by women authors published between 1526 and 1850.