Finding Data for Your Research

The library subscribes to many data archives and resources for you to find and access essential data for your research.

Finding Research Data

• (log in required) DATA CITATION INDEX (WEB OF SCIENCE) provides access to research data from repositories across disciplines and around the world.
• DataCite a registry of datasets that searchers across many disciplinary repositories
• FigShare a free cloud-based service for researchers to upload their data for discovery and access
• ICPSR membership allows current students, staff, and faculty access to thousands of data files in the social sciences. First time users, see the Search Tips.
• GIS Data The John R. Borchert Map Library can help you visualize data as well as locate data only available in printed maps and atlases. (see also, U of M Spatial Data Archive)
• Government Publications and Statistics are an excellent source of data and the Libraries' website provides particular guidance on using Census statistics.
• Business Information resources help you find statistics on company financial information, industry performance and related topics.
• Science.gov is home to the federal governments' collection of scientific, engineering, and R&D research, including data.
• JSTOR Data for Research includes datasets from JSTOR collections for text mining research and teaching.

Search Data Repositories

• DataBib is a tool that searches across hundreds of data repositories available for data deposit. This vetted source helps answers questions such as who can deposit and access the data.
• Popular Data Repositories: Our selection (not intended to be comprehensive) of publicly accessible data repositories categorized by subject.

Open Access Data

There are a number of reliable open source data archives in many disciplines. The Government is a good source for such information and university repositories are growing increasingly data-rich too.

• Awesome Public Datasets: List maintained on GitHub
• Open Data Commons: Learn how to make your data open in 2 minutes!
• OAISTER: Harvest metadata from world-wide library repositories.
• CODATA: International Council for Science: Committee on Data for Science and Technology
• Science Commons: A Creative Commons project
• Is It Open?: An Open Knowledge Foundation project