Clark Family Library: Public Policy: 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

Data resources

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.

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 provides rich data resources in a host of social science topics.
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.

UN Data
The United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) launched a new internet based data service for the global user community. It brings UN statistical databases within easy reach of users through a single entry point.
Data.gov
Data.gov is a central portal for the US federal government's publicly accessible data. You can browse datasets by organization, search using keywords, and view data geospatially.
Pew Research Center
Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world.
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

National Archives Census Records
Census records can provide the building blocks of your research. The first Federal Population Census was taken in 1790, and has been taken every ten years since. Because of a 72-year restriction on access to the Census, the most recent year available is 1950. The 1950 Census was released on April 1, 2022.

The National Archives has the census schedules available from 1790 to 1950, and most have now been digitized by our digitization partners. Family researchers generally find it most helpful to begin with the most current census and work backwards as a strategy for locating people in earlier generations.
Census Bureau
Census Bureau provides data about the nation's people and economy.
CIA World Factbook
Concise and current facts and statistics about 267 countries and entities. Published annually by the Central Intelligence Agency.
UN Demographic and Social Statistics
The UN provides demographic and other population-driven social data for countries around the world, including statistics on housing, disabilities, and more.
Eurostat
Eurostat's mission: to be the leading provider of high quality statistics on Europe. Eurostat is the statistical office of the European Union situated in Luxembourg. Its task is to provide the European Union with statistics at European level that enable comparisons between countries and regions.

Comparative Agendas
The Comparative Agendas Project is a joint effort between several US and European universities to assemble and organize information on policies from around the world to help scholars track policy changes over time.
Correlates of State Policy
The Correlates of State Policy Project is part of Michigan State University's Institute for Public Policy and Social Research. The project "ims to compile, disseminate, and encourage the use of data relevant to U.S. state policy research, tracking policy differences across the 50 states and changes over time" ("Correlates of State Policy").
IPPSR Policy Research Database
IPPSR (Institute for Public Policy and Social Research) at Michigan State University hosts a repository of public policy research and data that can be searched using this database.
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.

Odum Institute Archive Dataverse
The Odum Institute Archive Dataverse is the online presence of the Odum Institute Archive at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The dataverse includes polling data at the state and national level.
MIT Election Data and Science Lab
MIT's Election Data and Science Lab is a non-partisan research lab that "supports advances in election science by collecting, analyzing, and sharing core data and findings. We also aim to build relationships with election officials and others to help apply new scientific research to the practice of democracy in the United States" ("About").

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.

Please see the "Find Data" page on the Economics research guide (linked below) for financial/economic data resources.

Economics
by Ronalee Ciocco Last Updated Jul 10, 2024 16 views this year