Research Guides: Search for Data: Data by Subject

Business and Economics

Sage Data This link opens in a new window
Find data from the U.S. government, World Bank, IMF, National Bureau of Economic Research, United Nations and more
WRDS This link opens in a new window
Datasets for finance, accounting, insurance, public policy, management & more.
Restricted to only current SMU students, faculty & staff. Account required and limited to faculty, staff, PhD and Masters students. Undergraduates can apply for a 3-day pass that works on campus. Subscription datasets include Capital IQ, COMPUSTAT, CRSP, Datastream, Eventus, Guidance Feed, I/B/E/S, Mergent FISD, OptionMetrics, SDC, and Thomson/Refinitiv 13F Ownership, Mutual Fund Ownership, and Insider Data.
FactSet This link opens in a new window
Data & analytics on global equity & fixed income markets
Restricted to only current SMU students, faculty & staff. Database works best with Chrome.
Use the FactSet Excel add-in for additional data functionality, available from a limited number of dedicated computers in the Business Library that don't require an individual account.
View the Finding Financials tutorial for more insights.
Datastream This link opens in a new window
Commodities, economic, equities & futures data
WRDS account required. Limited to faculty, PhD and Masters students. Undergraduates can apply for a 3 day pass that works inside the Business Library.

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Business & Economics Data

Education

Depending on your data needs, also look at data for other social sciences.

National Center for Education Statistics
The primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education in the U.S. and other nations.
Texas Education Agency Reports and Data
Collects a variety of data on school districts, public and charter schools, and student performance.
College Scorecard Data
Downloadable data files on higher education, including institution-level and field of study data.

Humanities

There is not one recommended database to find datasets for humanities research. It depends on the type of data you are looking for as well as when that data might have been collected. If you don't see any resources of interest on this guide, contact your librarian.

Search for Text Data Sets
This guide has information on accessing a variety of text datasets

HathiTrust Digital Library This link opens in a new window
For digital humanities research, includes text mining tools
Current SMU students and employees with documented print disabilities are eligible to access additional materials in HathiTrust. Contact libraryaccess@smu.edu for more information.

JSTOR Constellate
Platform for learning and performing text analysis from JSTOR and Portico
LC for Robots
Explore the many ways the Library of Congress provides machine-readable access to its digital collections.
Journal of Open Humanities Data (JOHD)
The journal features peer reviewed publications describing humanities research objects or techniques with high potential for reuse.
Library of Congress: Digital Collections, Selected Datasets
The Library of Congress selects, preserves, and provides enduring access to datasets with the goal of cultivating a broad collection.

Physical Sciences

Zenodo
A general science data repository
Dryad
A general science data repository

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Physical Sciences Data

Social Sciences

There are many other potential sources for data in the social sciences. If you don't find what you need with this guide, contact your librarian.

ICPSR This link opens in a new window
Data archive of research in the social sciences
Sage Data This link opens in a new window
Statistical data for the social sciences

Census Data
A tool that lets you explore U.S. Census data, which includes information about the population, business and economy, and state and local governments.

Roper iPoll This link opens in a new window
Public opinion polling data, 1935-

General Social Survey
Since 1972, the General Social Survey (GSS) has been monitoring societal change and studying the growing complexity of American society. Create a free account to use.
Archeology Data Service
A UK repository for storing, searching, and preserving archaeology/heritage data.
Gallup Global Public Datasets
Gathers nationally representative cross-country comparable data in more than 160 countries and areas,.

Text Mining and Library Databases

If you are planning a research project on text data extracted from a library database, you must contact your subject librarian to discuss permissions, formats, and fees. For other types of data, contact us for help if the database does not make it clear how to download data.

In addition to copyright considerations, we must take into account the libraries' licensing agreement with the vendor for this specific kind of use.

Subject Librarians
Contact your subject librarian
Copyright Support
Learn how to observe copyright laws and avoid infringement