Data Librarian
Welcome STS 2500!
This guide will help you discover and evaluate sources.
The presentation slides are available. The slides cover the general concepts about finding and evaluating data. (Be sure to view the Speaker Notes.) This research guide points to specific resources available through the library or publicly.
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out!
Activity: Compare Sources
Our first activity is comparing two sources of data: ICPSR and Kaggle.
- Kaggle DatasetsA collection of datasets for predictive modeling and machine learning.
Academic Literaure
Every empirical academic paper is going to have a methods section. Look for articles similar to a topic you are interested in, and check the methods section. What data are they using?
Here is a real-life example. A group of students asked Jenn about Major League Baseball injuries, and she found this: Injury Rates in Major League Baseball During the 2020 COVID-19 Season. The very first line of the Methods section states, “Data from the 2018-2020 MLB transaction reports were extracted online at mlb.com/transactions.”
Library Licensed Datasets
These are data sources available to you through UVA Library. They cover a broad range of topics.
- ICPSR This link opens in a new windowThe Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) provides a vast archive of social science data for research and instruction. Users may view documentation, download raw data, and search a bibliography of data-related literature. (You must create a personal ICPSR account with your virginia.edu email address in order to download data.)
- Social Explorer This link opens in a new windowInteractive Maps and Reports provide easy access to demographic information about the United States. Data comes from the Census beginning in 1790 and from the Religious Congregations and Membership Study beginning in 1980. Also has crime and health data.
- Sage Data This link opens in a new windowSage Data repository contains over 18.9 billion datapoints from over 400 databases sourced from 70 public and private organizations. The datasets contained in Sage Data are structured and homogenized to permit correlation of multiple, diverse indicators. The Sage Data repository continues to grow regularly with the addition of new datasets drawn from public and private sources.
- Library Licensed Downloadable DatasetsAll the library licensed downloadable datasets are listed here. Of particular interest would be election data, Historical Business Data, and Gallup Survey Data.
Government Data
- Research Data Services: Find DataThese library pages are organized by theme and include sources available from government sources.
- Data.govUS federal government's open data portal
Data from News Sources
Also see News sources’ GitHub repos: NYTimes, Washington Post, BuzzFeed News, etc.
- BuzzFeedNews/everything repoAn index of all of BuzzFeed's open-source data, analysis, libraries, tools, and guides.
Remember to Iterate
Start in one place and keep iterating. Use the first place to see if sources are cited, and work from there.
Statista is a great place to try this strategy. Statista only offers basic statistics (tables and charts, not full datasets). However, they always cite their sources. Keep digging at the source to see if you can find an original dataset. You can use the same strategy with PolicyMap as well.
- Statista This link opens in a new windowStatista.com consolidates statistical data on over 80,000 topics from more than 22,500 sources.
- PolicyMap This link opens in a new windowPolicyMap is an online data and mapping tool that enables government, commercial, non-profit and academic institutions to access data about communities and markets across the US. Use it for research, market studies, business planning, site selection, grant applications and impact analysis.