Introduction to data access

1. ECONOMICS DATA ACCESS
S E T H M . P O R T E R M A , M L I S

2. Learning Outcomes
• Students will list subject specific economic databases
• Students will describe economic data access through the
Georgia Tech Library
• Students will retrieve economic data sets from resources
• Students will apply skills demonstrate information retrieval for
their own research.

3. Key Points
• Accessing Data
–Databases
–Government Information
–University Think-Tanks
• Bloomberg Terminal
– Access

4. Before I get started…..
What do you want to know?

5. Microdata introduction
• In numeric or statistical data collections, roughly speaking, there are two
kinds of data resources in terms of the structure of data content and/or
processing. One is aggregated data; and the other is unaggregated data,
which is usually called microdata or machine-readable raw data.
• Microdata is mostly original data that contains every individual (e.g.,
person, company, etc.) record in the survey/research samples. Public Use
Microdata Sample datafiles, mainly from U. S. Censuses and other relevant
governmental surveys, so far account for the majority of microdata that
have been used by researchers and other data users. The size of microdata
is usually too huge to be available in print, thus computerized data storage
and retrieval systems, as well as issues of file formats associated with
various statistical software and operating systems, are heavily involved in
working with microdata.
http://www.library.illinois.edu/doc/researchtools/guides/statistics/microdata.
html

6. Economic Database Access
• EconLit
• NBER Working Papers
• Euromonitor
• IMF eLibrary
• OECD iLibrary

7. Data access
http://libguides.gatech.edu/c.php?g=54223&p=
350240
Databases
• ICPSR
–Must create a login to use.
– Analyze micro data sets by topic or series
• E.g., American Community Series
• Longitudinal data

8. Databases
• Social Explorer
• Data-Planet Statistical Datasets
• Proquest Statistical Insight
• Simplymap

9. Pull the data
• Spend the next 10 minutes pulling a relevant data set.
• Report back

10. Data Access
Government Information
• Census:
http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtml
• Data Ferrett: http://dataferrett.census.gov/
• Data.gov
https://www.data.gov/
NARA: https://www.archives.gov/era/

11. Gov info.
• U.S. Census: http://www.census.gov/
• American Fact Finder: http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtml
• Quick Facts: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/index.html
• FedStats: http://fedstats.sites.usa.gov/
• CIA World FactBook: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/
• Bureau of Labor Statistics: http://bjs.gov/
• Survey of Current Business (Bureau of Economic Analysis): http://www.bea.gov/
• Catalog of US Government Publications: http://catalog.gpo.gov/F?RN=412937073
• National Center for Science & Engineering Statistics:http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/
•
• FDLP: http://www.fdlp.gov/
• GPO: http://www.gpo.gov/
• Data.Gov: https://www.data.gov/
• USA.Gov: http://www.usa.gov/
• White House.Gov: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/
• National Center for Health Statistics: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/
• Department of Defense: http://www.defense.gov

12. Gov info
• Library of Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.php
•
• National Security Archive: http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/
•
• Defense Industry information: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/
•
• Department of Energy Database: https://www.osti.gov/opennet/
•
• NASA STI: http://www.sti.nasa.gov/
•
• Energy Information Administration: http://www.eia.gov/
•
• SEC Edgar: http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml#.VBiHOWMmWf4
•
• Historical Census Browser : http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/
•
• Social Security: http://www.ssa.gov/
•
• Agriculture statistics: http://www.nass.usda.gov/
•
• USDA Economic Research Service ERS: http://www.ers.usda.gov/
•
• Education Statistics: http://nces.ed.gov/
•
• Bureau of Justice: http://bjs.gov/
•
• Bureau of Transportation: http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/node/11792
•
• State of the USA: http://www.stateoftheusa.org/
•
• Directory of Government statistical sources Vanderbilt: http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/govdb/govt/stat.html
•
• Infomine: http://infomine.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/search?govpub

13. Pull the data
• Spend the next 10 minutes pulling a relevant data set.
• Report back

14. University Think-Tanks
• UNC-http://www.irss.unc.edu/odum/contentPrimary.jsp?nodeid=7
• UW-Madison: http://www.disc.wisc.edu/
• IPUMS University of Minnesota: https://cps.ipums.org/cps/
• PSID University of Michigan: http://psidonline.isr.umich.edu/
• Awesome Data: https://github.com/caesar0301/awesome-public-
datasets
• CIESIN Colombia: http://www.ciesin.org/

16. Your turn!
• Take the next 5-10 minutes to pull up a relevant dataset
• Do a quick search in your research area.
• Did you find what you were looking for?

17. Contact Information
• Seth M. Porter, MA, MLIS
• Co-Coordinator of Library Instruction
• Social Sciences Librarian
• Georgia Institute of Technology
• seth.porter@library.gatech.edu
• 404-894-1392