LibGuides: Conducting library research for systems projects: Home

Contact Info

Sarah Young

Contact:

Hunt Library, Rm 109G

412-268-7384

Subjects: Information Systems, Public Policy, Reference, Social & Decision Sciences, Statistics

Data 101 Resource Guide

Data 101

The Data 101 Resource Guide provides an overview of library support and resources related to using, finding, visualizing and managing your data throughout the research process.

Library Workshops

Students in a classroom with a banner reading 'workshops' over the image

The Libraries offer many workshops (this semester all online!) from conducting literature reviews to data visualization and management and more. Check out our list of workshops and register at the CMU Libraries workshop page.

Data Office Hours

Do you have data-related questions or need help with a data project? We are here to help!

The University Libraries offer Data Services and Research Consultations! These office hours provide in-person or virtual consultations to students, staff, faculty, and researchers in Pittsburgh. Library specialists are available to help at any point across the research data lifecycle, which includes data collecting, cleaning, structuring and integration, data management, data analysis, coding in R and Python, data sharing, and scholarly communications. Book an in-person consultation or virtual appointment!

Other useful resources

Business and Industry Resources
This guide covers all of our resources related to company, industry, market and economic research.
Newspapers
Our complete guide to the Libraries' newspaper resources.
Programming and coding
This guide provides resources for learning coding skills in Python, R, SQL and more.
Public Policy
A guide to public policy related resources from the Libraries.
Spatial Data
Information about working with spatial data, mapping and GIS.
Using images
This guide provides tips and resources for using visual images in your reports, presentations and end products.
Using R
This guide provides resources for learning and using for data analysis and visualization.

LibKey Nomad

LibKey Nomad is a browser extension that facilitates access to the Libraries' full text resources as you find research on the web. LibKey Nomad provides one-click access to full text from websites like PubMed, Wikipedia and publisher pages. Install the plug-in for Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, or other browsers by going to this LibKey Nomad download page and choosing Carnegie Mellon University as your institution when prompted.

About this guide

These are just a few resources that might be useful to you in your research for Heinz College systems projects. The Libraries offers hundreds of databases and other types of resources that might be useful, so feel free to contact me any time you have questions!

Finding Background Information

Advanced Search for CMU Libraries Catalog

ABI/INFORM Collection This link opens in a new window
Articles from industry and scholarly sources, periodicals, reports and dissertations, on business, management, corporate strategy, and the competitive landscape. Database Guide
PAIS Index This link opens in a new window
Public affairs, public and social policies, international relations, 1915-present. Database Guide
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
A multidisciplinary database, with searchable author abstracts, covering the literature of the sciences, social sciences and the arts & humanities providing indexes and links to cited references for each article.

Comparitive Cases and Benchmarking

Access World News (NewsBank) This link opens in a new window
Includes current and archived news content from more than 12,700 sources spanning 200+ countries and territories. A combination of global, regional and local news, including a unique merging of news formats (full-text articles, web-only content, PDF image editions), this resource supports a diverse range of research needs across an array of academic disciplines for students and faculty. Exact dates of coverage vary by title, with most ca. 2000 - present.
IBISWorld This link opens in a new window
Industry market research reports with analysis, data, conditions, segmentation, market share, primary companies, and outlook in the US, UK, China, US States, and globally.

Industry Wizard Tool: Located under "Expert Tools" allows users to quickly search, query, and save industry ratios, data, and statistics from all IBISWorld reports for benchmarking purposes, strategies, etc. Data is downloadable.
Policy Commons: Global Think Tanks This link opens in a new window
The world’s largest database for public policy, with more than 3.2 million reports, working papers, policy briefs, data sources, and media drawn from a directory of more than 24,000 IGOs, NGOs, think tanks, and research centers. It includes over a million pages of premium content from leading publishers and restored from organizations that have disappeared. The resource includes access to the North American City Reports collection - a collection of over 130,000 city documents from the five hundred largest cities in North America, including various municipal and regional organizations.

Google
A Google search can be a good source of information about approaches that other cities or organizations have taken in addressing the problem under study. Add site:.edu, site:.gov or site:.org to your keyword search to limit to only academic, government or organizational websites.

Finding Supportive Statistics

Statista This link opens in a new window
Market, industry, company, and demographic statistics, data-centered reports and dossiers, fully downloadable, various formats, international, easy-to-use.

Includes access to the Consumer Insights (formerly Global Consumer Survey, a resource that offers global consumption and media usage data of consumers. A great market research tool for consumer behavior and interactions with brands. Select the Insights > Explore Consumer Insights within Statista.
DataPlanet Statistical Datasets This link opens in a new window
Interdisciplinary datasets with mapping, graphing, and report-generating capability. Data-Planet Statistical Ready Reference also available for basic retrieval.
Social Explorer This link opens in a new window
Visual and numerical presentation of U.S. census data and a wide range of demographic information, 1790 – present. Creates maps and reports at levels from national to block group.
Roper Center Public Opinion Archives (with iPOLL) This link opens in a new window
Archive of social sciences data. Data primarily from survey of public opinion. NOTE: Register for a free account with your CMU email address for full access to Roper iPoll content.

Finding Datasets

ICPSR This link opens in a new window
A data archive of datasets related to social and political research, made available through the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan. CMU affiliates have access to member-only data. To create an account, click Log In from the home page and then Create Account. Note that you must be in the CMU IP range when creating an account (either on campus, or using the Full VPN). Once an account is created, you can access the resource from any location using the link above. Use this guide for more info.

Western PA Regional Data Center
"The Data Center maintains Allegheny County and the City of Pittsburgh’s open data portal, and provides a number of services to data publishers and users. The Data Center also hosts datasets from these and other public sector agencies, academic institutions, and non-profit organizations."

ProQuest TDM Studio This link opens in a new window
A web-based text mining platform that allows you to access and analyze large amounts of text data. Using content retrieved from ProQuest database, you can build your corpus and conduct data analysis, text mining, and visualization using your preferred methods to uncover relationships, patterns, and connections within and between datasets while collaborating with colleagues in real-time on one platform. To access a workbench, you must submit a request.To find information on how to do this, visit this guide.
S&P Capital IQ This link opens in a new window
In-depth financial/valuation data resource, including information on equities, credit ratings, transactions, and more. Use hundreds of data points to generate lists of companies, markets, executives. Includes an Excel plug-in for data analysis. Create an account using your CMU email address by following these directions. Capital IQ is available only for users on the Pittsburgh campus.
CB Insights This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive global database of private companies and investors activities. Contains advanced searches for private companies, investors, and deals information (especially private equity and venture capital). Also great for news on emerging markets. An excellent resource for startups and entrepreneurship research. (NOTE: You must create an account using your CMU email).

Data and statistics are gathered and disseminated by many organizations, federal agencies, individual researchers, companies and more, often making it difficult to find just the data or statistic you need. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when you embark on a search for data and statistics:

Data vs. Statistics:

While the terms data and statistics are often used interchangeably, they actually aren't the same! Data refers to the raw information that is collected and if often in the form of a spreadsheet, where each row represents one case. Statistics are summaries of data, often provided as a percentage, proportion, or average value. Do you need raw data or a summary statistic to answer your question?

Time frame and geographic scope

Think about what time frame and geography you're interested in. Do you need historical information, or information spanning several years? Or just the most current information? Do you want information at a country, state or local level? Do you need international, non-US data or statistics?

Who collects and disseminates the data?

Think about who would likely collect the data and disseminate the data or statistics for you topic. Would this data be collected by a large federal agency in a nationwide survey? If so, which agency? Or would it be more likely collected by a non-profit organization at a local scale?

Consider different sources

There are many places to look for data. Here is a series of search strategies to try. You'll find links to many of these sources in this research guide.

Data aggregators through the Libraries: These are searchable databases that bring together data and statistics from many different sources. This can be a good place to start. Examples are DataPlanet Statistical Datasets, Statista, Insider Intelligence and Roper iPoll.
Data producers: If the above aggregators don't work, look for data and statistics directly from the agencies and organizations that are likely to collect and disseminate that data. You'll find some of these in the boxes below.
Published literature: Researchers regularly use publicly available datasets, or their own datasets that they share, or report useful statistics in their publications. Try searching databases like those on the Finding Research and Industry News tab of this guide.
Targeted internet searches: If you still haven't found what you need, try searching Google and Google Dataset Search. Add terms like 'data' or 'statistics' to your search terms. You can also add filetype:xls to limit your search to Excel files.
Ask the Library! Contact Sarah Young, your liaison librarian, for more help finding data and statistics.

Visualizing Data

Social Explorer This link opens in a new window
Visual and numerical presentation of U.S. census data and a wide range of demographic information, 1790 – present. Creates maps and reports at levels from national to block group.
PolicyMap This link opens in a new window
A U.S. national data and mapping tool and analytics platform with multidisciplinary applications. Useful for social sciences, urban studies, real estate and housing analysis, community and economic development, public administration, public health, policy and political science, education, business, economics, statistics, and geography, among others. Includes thousands of U.S. data indicators for demographic and socioeconomic analysis, from a neighborhood census block group in many cases, up to a national level.

Managing Information

Zotero is a popular free open source citation management tool that makes saving and citing online resources, including websites, YouTube videos, news articles, and scholarly database results, a breeze. Some of Zotero's strengths include its ability to capture a multitude of resource types with the click of a button, and its group library function, with no limit on group membership. For more about Zotero, see this guide.

Skilling Up

SAGE Campus This link opens in a new window
SAGE Campus provides access to a growing collection of online courses on introductory skills and research methods including critical thinking, data literacy, research design, R and Python, statistical methods and more. NOTE: You must create an account by clicking on the "Register" link in the upper right-hand corner using your CMU email address. If you are an instructor, please contact Sarah Young to upgrade your account in order to manage student cohorts.
LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) This link opens in a new window
LinkedIn Learning provides thousands of training videos and tutorials covering web languages, online technologies, website best practices and more. Carnegie Mellon University students, faculty and staff members have unlimited access to the entire library.