Good examples of websites and tools with data and statistics are below. There are also many other resources related to data & statistics for specific topics or regions, so contact Liz Cooper, Social Sciences Librarian, cooperliz@unm.edu, for advice on other tools to consult.
The Inter-University Consortium for Political & Social Research (ICPSR) maintains a dataset archive of research in the social and behavioral sciences. It hosts 21 specialized collections of data in education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, terrorism, and other fields.
Each study's dataset provides documentation (e.g. codebook), and a bibliography of published articles that used the data. Data offered in many formats.
Must create an ICPSR account to download data. Coverage: 1700s-present.
Visualize and map thousands of socioeconomic variables covering the United States (local to national). Create reports on specific Census geographies. Download reports, data, and maps. Coverage: 2000-present.
Map various demographic and socioeconomic variables from United States Census, Statistics Canada, UK Data Centre, and Eurostat. Download maps/data. Coverage: 1790-present.
The principal source of periodic demographic and socioeconomic data of the United States. Also includes data from the Business Surveys, and Economic, Manufacturers and Government censuses. Includes publications and links from historical censuses. Coverage: 1860-present.
In addition to the links on this page, Princeton University Library's Data & Statistical Services librarians have created a great catalog for identifying data sets on specific topics. Although the links on the site are via Princeton’s servers and often will not work for us at UNM, after you identify a useful data set, you can Google the data set’s name and gain access to those that are free or that UNM might have access to or you can get info on how to acquire the data sets that require fees, etc. Contact me, Liz Cooper (cooperliz@unm.edu) for assistance.
Public opinion polls cover both political and sociological topics.
To learn more about polls, check out the tutorial on Polling Fundamentals (from the Roper Center). Designed for the novice, it provides definitions, examples, and explanations that introduce students to the field of public opinion research.
Some useful websites and tools with polling data include:
Public opinion polling data from U.S. and international polling firms on a broad range of topics including opinions and behavior on social issues, politics, pop culture, international affairs. Download datasets and tables. Coverage: 1935 to present.