LibGuides: Reading Graduate Program: Finding Data Sets &amp; Statistical Sources

BGSU Databases

Historical Statistics of the United States
U.S. statistical data dating back to 1790.
Coverage: 1790 to present
ICPSR (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research)
A vast archive of social science data for research and instruction, containing thousands of digital files of social science research data in political science, sociology, economics, criminal justice, and more.
Statista
Statista is an online statistics portal providing access to data from market and opinion research institutions, as well as from business organizations and government institutions.

Government

data.census.gov
This resource replaces the now defunct American FactFinder. This is the U.S. Census Bureau's main vehicle for distributing U.S. census data, including economic censuses and surveys and annual population estimates. Population, housing, economic and geographic data can be found here.
GovInfo
GovInfo provides free public access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government, with comprehensive advanced search and browse options. Some things you can find in GovInfo include: Budget of the United States, Commerce Business Daily, Congressional Directory, Congressional Record, Economic Indicators, Economic Report of the President, Government Accountability Office Reports, U.S. Government Manual, and the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents. GovInfo replaced FDsys in 2018.
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)
A searchable database of education statistics, mostly for the United States, produced by the U.S. Department of Education.
Coverage: 1980 to present
Statistics Canada
Canadian census data, community profiles, and other information about Canada's population, resources, economy, society and culture. Access to some data requires a subscription.
Access to some data requires a subscription.

Ohio Department of Education
Report Card Resources for each school district in Ohio.

Freely Available

Pew Research Center Publications
Full text reports, analysis, news and data from the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan research organization that conducts public opinion polls and social science research.
Coverage: 2005 to present

Data Repository
This is a repository of open access data available through the Directory of Open Access project.
Wikidata
This is a free knowledge base with more than 67,000,000 data items that anyone can edit.

Tips

Looking for data from a University? Most campuses have a centrally located office that tracks their data. Here is an example of BGSU's Office of Institutional Research. These offices are sometimes called different names such as Institutional Effectiveness. However, they may be willing to share datasets with graduate students.