Government Information Research Guide
Data Sets

Data collections or sets make raw statistical data accessible in catalogs or libraries on the Web. These collections contain numeric representations of facts or concepts in some formal organization suitable for communication, interpretation, or processing by researchers. Social scientists use data sets frequently to generate new knowledge. Researchers manipulate the raw data with major statistical software packages, such as SPSS and SAS.

Selected data collections in Government Information follow.

American Fact Finder
This set from the U.S. Census Bureau contains a variety of information from household income to ethnic and racial profiles of various groups across the country.

Data on the Net
Search or browse this listing from U. of California San Diego of 873 Internet sites of numeric social science statistical data, data catalogs, data libraries, social science gateways, addresses, and more.

Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
Search for words or phrases in the title field, by investigator, by study number, or in all fields of this huge collection of data sets at the University of Michigan. The University of Massachusetts Amherst is a member of ICPSR. Contact Professor Doug Anderton for access to this database.

Macroeconomic Time Series Data Source Locater
University of Chicago database that provides a list of sources by date, geographic area and macroeconomic data category. It records how far back a particular source covers subjects, such as balance of payments, GDP, etc.

Massachusetts Institute for Social and Economic Research (MISER)
Located at the UMass Amherst campus. As the lead agency in the State Data Center (SDC) program, MISER is the liaison between the Commonwealth and the U.S. Bureau of the Census and houses all the latter's data on Massachusetts. Also compiles foreign trade statistics.

MassCHIP (Massachusetts Community Health Information Profiles) (Massachusetts Dept. of Public Health)
A public health data warehouse, providing access to community-level data. Produces standard and customized reports at various geographic levels with multiple search criteria, maps and graphs for us in assessing community needs, monitoring health status, and evaluating programs.

Social and Demographic Research Institute (SADRI)
Affiliated with the Department of Sociology, SADRI is responsible for the maintenance and dissemination of various data archives to the UMass campus community, including local access to the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) and the National Center for Health Statistics Data archive (NCHS). Machmer Hall W34 University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 01003; Phone: 413-545-3416; FAX: 413-545-0746; E-mail: weber@sadri.umass.edu

World Bank Research Data Sets
Researchers compiled these data sets for the World bank, which provides them free to encourage the creation of new knowledge. These examples demonstrate this resource's broad coverage. The Soviet Economic Decline, 1928-1990; Poverty in India, 1951-1994; Africa's Growth Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divisions, 1960s-1980s in 160 countries.