Data & Datasets: Home

Access government data, academic research datasets, and specialized repositories to support quantitative analysis, digital humanities projects, and evidence-based research across disciplines.

All resources listed are freely available online unless otherwise noted. Resources marked "access provided by the University Libraries" require Loyola authentication. If you encounter access issues, please report the problem.

For additional subscription databases and resources, see our complete Database A-Z list.

Government and Policy Data

Government agencies collect extensive data on demographics, economics, health, and social conditions. These datasets are typically free to access and can provide authoritative information for research and analysis.

Federal Sources

• U.S. Census Bureau - Demographic and economic data including decennial census, American Community Survey, and economic indicators
• Bureau of Labor Statistics - Employment statistics, labor market data, and economic indicators
• CDC Data - Public health statistics, epidemiological data, and health surveillance
• Data.gov - Federal government open data repository with datasets from multiple agencies
• Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) - Economic time series data from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

State, Regional and Local

• Chicago Data Portal - City of Chicago government datasets including crime, transportation, and municipal services
• Illinois Data Hub - State-level data on education, health, and government operations
• Cook County Data - County-level datasets for the Chicago metropolitan area

Also see: The Data Liberation Project - an initiative to identify, obtain, reformat, clean, document, publish, and disseminate government datasets of public interest.

Data Research by Discipline

Academic research repositories provide access to datasets from scholarly studies, surveys, and longitudinal research projects. These resources support replication studies, secondary analysis, and interdisciplinary research.

Social Sciences

• Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) - World's largest archive of social science research data (access provided by the University Libraries)
• General Social Survey - Longitudinal study of American social attitudes and behaviors since 1972
• Roper Center for Public Opinion Research - Public opinion polling data from 1930s to present (access provided by the University Libraries)
• World Values Survey - Global research project on human values and beliefs
• American National Election Studies (ANES) - Voter attitudes and behavior in U.S. presidential and congressional elections
• Pew Research Center Data - Downloadable datasets on social issues, politics, and global attitudes
• Afrobarometer - African public opinion surveys covering 30+ countries

Also see: Political Science Research Guide and Sociology Research Guide for discipline-specific resources.

Health & Medicine

• Health and Retirement Study - Longitudinal panel study of aging and health in America
• National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) - Health and nutritional status of adults and children in the U.S.
• Global Health Observatory - World Health Organization's data repository
• Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) - Healthcare utilization, costs, and insurance coverage data
• PubMed Central - Free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature
• ClinicalTrials.gov - Database of privately and publicly funded clinical studies worldwide
• SEER Cancer Statistics - Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program data
• NIH Data Sharing Repositories - Directory of NIH-approved data repositories

Also see: Nursing Research Guide and Public Health Research Guide for additional health sciences resources.

Economics & Business

• World Bank Open Data - Development data for countries worldwide
• International Monetary Fund Data - Global economic and financial statistics
• OECD Data - Economic indicators for developed countries
• Survey of Consumer Finances - Federal Reserve data on family income, wealth, and financial behavior
• Bloomberg Terminal - Real-time financial data (available at Lewis Library)

Also see: Business Administration Research Guide and Economics Research Guide for additional resources.

Environmental Sciences

• PANGAEA - Earth and environmental science data repository
• EPA Environmental Data - Environmental Protection Agency datasets and tools
• NOAA Climate Data - National weather and climate datasets
• NASA Earthdata - Earth science data from NASA missions

Also see: Environmental Studies Research Guide for discipline-specific resources.

Digital Humanities and Textual Studies

Text mining and computational analysis of literary and historical sources require specially formatted datasets that support digital scholarship methods. These resources align with the Center for Textual Studies and Digital Humanities at Loyola.

Text Analysis and Mining

• JSTOR - Data for Research - Web-based tools for selecting and interacting with content from the JSTOR archive, including word frequencies, citations, key terms, and ngrams (access provided by the University Libraries)
• HathiTrust Research Center - Text mining and analysis of digitized books
• Google Books Ngram Viewer - Word frequency data from Google Books corpus
• Voyant Tools - Web-based text reading and analysis environment
• Perseus Digital Library - Classical texts with linguistic annotations and analysis tools

Historical Collections

• Chronicling America - Historic American newspapers with full-text searchability from the Library of Congress
• Text Creation Partnership - Transcribed historical texts for computational analysis
• Women Writers Project - Early modern women's writing for text analysis (subscription required)
• Internet Archive - Millions of free books and texts
• Old Bailey Online - Proceedings of London's Central Criminal Court, 1674-1913, with data API
• Slave Voyages Database - Trans-Atlantic and Intra-American slave trade data and visualizations

Tools and Methods

• Humanities Commons - Scholarly network with repository for humanities research and data
• Programming Historian - Peer-reviewed tutorials for digital research methods
• Data is Plural - A weekly newsletter and archive of useful/curious datasets

Also see: Digital Humanities Research Guide for additional tools and methods.

Geographic and Spatial Data

Geographic information systems (GIS) and spatial analysis require specialized datasets that include location information and geographic boundaries.

GIS Resources

• U.S. Geological Survey Data - Geographic, geologic, and hydrologic data
• Census Bureau Geography - Spatial data files and mapping resources
• Natural Earth - Public domain map datasets at multiple scales

Mapping Datasets

• OpenStreetMap - Collaborative geographic data project
• Chicago GIS Data - City of Chicago geographic datasets
• TIGER/Line Shapefiles - Census Bureau boundary files

Also see: Government Information Research Guide for additional geospatial government resources.

Data Management and Tools

Effective data management and analysis require appropriate tools and platforms. The Libraries provide access to software and support for organizing, analyzing, and preserving research data.

Repository Platforms

• Zenodo - Open repository for research data, publications, and digital humanities projects hosted by CERN
• Dataverse - Network of research data repositories across academic institutions
• Figshare - Repository for datasets, figures, and research outputs with DOI assignment
• Open Science Framework - Platform for research project management and data sharing
• GenBank - NIH genetic sequence database

Statistical Software

The University Libraries and ITS provide access to statistical analysis software:

• SPSS - Available in library computer labs
• R and RStudio - Open-source statistical computing
• SAS - Advanced analytics software (University license)
• Stata - Statistical software package (University license)

Also see: Learning Resources for software tutorials and training.

Research Support

• Research Help - Data management planning and analysis guidance
• Research Tools - Research workflow and citation management tools
• Subject Specialists - Schedule consultations for discipline-specific data support
• Digital Services - Support for digital projects and data visualization

Contact us at cud-ref@luc.edu for help accessing datasets or using statistical tools available through the University Libraries.