Data Resources for Penn State Researchers via ICPSR
The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) maintains and provides access to a vast archive of social science data for research and instruction, and offers training in quantitative methods to facilitate effective data use. To ensure that data resources are available to future generations of scholars, ICPSR preserves data, migrating them to new storage media as changes in technology warrant. In addition, ICPSR provides user support to assist researchers in identifying relevant data for analysis and in conducting their research projects.
ICPSR data are available to any faculty, staff, or student member of the Penn State community via a program called ICPSR Direct. Any user may download ICPSR data from an authorized Penn State IP address without going through the local official representative.
From ICPSR's home page (http://www.icpsr.umich.edu) you may search for data using the search field located toward the upper right of your screen. You may search by title, investigator, subject terms, study number (all datasets are associated with a particular study ID number), or conduct a search in all fields.
For instructions on how to search for data, utilize other valuable tools such as the Subject Thesaurus, Social Science Variables Database, or to narrow your search to the Special Topic Archives, please see the ICPSR Data Access and Analysis Web Page. An additional useful resource is the Bibliography of Data-Related Literature, which contains nearly 33,000 citations to publications based on ICPSR data.
In order to view data to download, you will need to enter your email address. Your email address is considered your password. The first time you access ICPSR, you will be required to fill out a short registration form. You will only need to do this once. Once you have entered your email (password) you will be taken to the file selection area where you may select the files you wish to download. Download instructions can be found under "Help with Downloads" on the data page.
If you would like to access data from ICPSR at home and you are not using a Penn State connection (broadband cable access from Adelphia or DSL from Verizon for example), please use this link to gain access to ICPSR.
If you are a member of the Penn State community and have questions about ICPSR resources, you may contact the following individuals at Penn State:
If you are interested in obtaining restricted data from ICPSR and are a member of the general Penn State community, please contact:
Official University Representative:
Stephen Woods
Social Sciences Librarian
Paterno Library
University Park Campus
Phone: 814 865 0665
swoods@psu.edu
The Social Science Library's Data Sets for Research Page
Last modified: 01/13/09 | Contact Webmaster
