Data & Statistics

Subject Librarian:
Ann Marshall

Location:
Rush Rhees Library

Email:
amarshall@library.rochester.edu

Phone:
585-273-3451

Office Hours:
By Appointment

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Comprehensive U.S. Data Sources

• Census 2010 (Homepage)
  New data are being added continually as they are processed.
• Data Sources
  A not-overwhelming list arranged by topic; useful and easy to use.

• Inter-university Consortium for Political & Social Research - ICPSR .
  Perhaps the largest archive of its kind in the U.S.; searchable by word or study number. Faculty, students, and staff at the UR can download data directly using any computer on campus. In addition to their own holdings:

• Internet Crossroads in Social Science Data
  An excellent tool for locating data sets available on the web. Search by keyword or browse by category. Includes international data studies.

• Social Science Data on the Net
  Keyword searchable listing of sites of providing numeric Social Science data, data catalogs, data libraries, etc. Think of it as a Google for data.

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U.S. Data - Economic and Social

• Bureau of Economic Analysis
  National (GDP and related data), International (BOP and related data), and Regional data.

• Bureau of Labor Statistics Data Homepage
  Current and historical data on employment, consumer and producer price indexes, wages, benefits, productivity, etc.
• Census 2010 Data
  Data from the 2010 Census are being added continually; interesting new features include an interactive redistricting map widget and an interactive population map.

• County Business Patterns
  Provides county, state, and national level business data on number of establishments, payroll, number of employees, and number of establishments by size. Historical data back to 1993.

• Current Population Survey (CPS)
  Data from a monthly servey of about 50,000 households; focus is on labor force characteristics with some demographic data. Some deeper backfiles and programs for formatting the data are available from the National Bureau for Economic Research. An excellent interface to CPS data is provided by IPUMS (Integrated Public Use Microdata Series) at: http://cps.ipums.org/cps/

• Economic Policy Institute's Datazone
  National, state, and regional data on employment and earnings, including time series data documenting historical labor market trends.

• EconoMagic: The Economic Time Series Page
  Over 100,000 sets of time series data. The ultimate resource for the "I just need some data" situation.

• Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED)
  A vast resource for monetary time series data (e.g., banking, CPI, GDP, exchange rates, interest rates, etc.). FRED is part of the Liber8 economic information portal (other data sets include GeoFRED, ALFRED, FRASER, CASSIDI).
  • Note: FRASER (Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research) includes reports such as "All Bank Statistics 1896 - 1955," "Banking and Monetary Statistics 1914-1941," "Banking and Monetary Statistics 1941-1970" - and that's just the beginning. It's a huge set of historical data.

• Integrated Public Use Microdata Series - IPUMS
  from the Minnesota Population Research Institute. An advanced interface allows you to subset and format a dataset for downloading. IPUMS also offers online analysis for Current Population Survey (CPS) data.

• NBER Economic Data Links
  Datasets available for download from the National Bureau of Economic Research. Topics include macro, industry, international trade, individual, and other topics such as patents, school districts, segregation, and child health.

• Record of American Democracy, 1984-1990 (ROAD)
  Named "Best Political Science Research Website" by the American Political Science Association (CMS) in 1999, the ROAD project allows you to download the entire dataset, or a custom subset that you create online. Codebooks are also downloadable.

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U.S. Data - Selected Topics: Religion, Health, Crime

• Association of Religion Data Archives
  Data files from studies on American and international religion; some analysis can be done interactively or datasets can be downloaded; ~350 are freely available. Codebooks are downloadable.

• Health and Retirement Study (HRS)
  A longitudinal study of aging and retirement, sponsored by the National Institute on Aging. Access is free, but you must register to download the public use data files.

• Uniform Crime Reports County Data
  From the Geospatial and Statistical Data Center at the U. of Virginia; an interactive interface to county level data compiled originally by the United States Department of Justice - Federal Bureau of Investigation. Includes downloadable codebooks.

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U.S. Data at the City Level

• State of Cities Data Systems (SOCDS)
  A trove of great information; provides data for individual Metropolitan Areas, Central Cities, and Suburbs. Includes demographic and economic data, rents, crime, building permits, "urban public finance" and more. From the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
  
  This database might also be useful to you:

• Nid: 31258
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  Govistics – Dates: Varies
  Spending data for 53K+ state & local governments and school districts across the US; track trends, compare peers, export to Excel.

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College and University Rankings

• College Rankings: U.S. News and World Report
  The online version of the magazine's latest rankings. Ask at Rush Rhees and Carlson reference desk for access to full report.
• Guide to Rankings from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  An excellent compilation of many ranking agencies and articles. Includes an essay "Rankings: Caution and Controversy."

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Sources for Non-U.S. Data

Subscription databases:

Free websites:

• International Relations Data Site
  A good general starting point that provides links to many sources of data.

• CESSDA - Council of European Social Science Data Archives
  A collective repository and guide to European social science datasets.

• International Accounts Data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
  Balance of payments and related data in table and PDF formats.

• International Data Base (IDB) - from the U.S. Bureau of the Census.
  Tables of demographic, and socio-economic data for 227 countries and areas of the world; provides ways to specify your own dataset and download it.

• United Nations Population Network (POPIN)
  Serves as a major resource for information on the world's population-- aggregated data and data on individual countries--and includes projections to 2050.

• United Nations Statistics Division
  Provides a number of datasets with unrestricted access, including monthly oil data, national accounts, social indicators, "indicators on women and men," several more.

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