LibGuides: Graduate Research in the Sciences: Finding Data and Statistics

Finding Data and Statistics

General Research

Often Google can be a good place to start. You can find government, organizations, professional societies, and business sites with data.

Search Tips:

Within your search statement, include (statistics OR data).
To search for government, organization, or educational sites, include site:.gov, site:.org, or site:.edu

Example: "global warming" (statistics OR data) site:.gov

You can also use the Advanced Search option to fill in these terms and limiters.

You can try Google Scholar to identify research articles using statistics or data. Some of the articles will include statistics and will identify the researchers for you to contact if necessary.

Science | Pew Research Center
Provides data from studies of attitudes about scientific research and innovation.

Government Data Sources:

Data.gov
The purpose of Data.gov is to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. Data.gov provides descriptions of the Federal datasets (metadata), information about how to access the datasets, and tools that leverage government datasets.
FEDSTATS
Provides easy access via the Federal Interagency Council on Statistical Policy to the full range of statistics and information produced by federal agencies for public use.
Science.gov
Locate authoritative selected science information provided by U.S. Government agencies, including research and development results. Searches across the DOE, DOD, NASA, and EPA databases that were previously covered by the GrayLit Network, plus many more.
EPA's Environmental Dataset Gateway
Find data through EPA's environmental resources.
National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics
Contains data on research and development, the science and engineering workforce, the condition and progress of STEM education, and U.S. competitiveness in science, engineering, technology, and R&D.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Contains thousands of maps of land, space, and oceans.
Energy Information Administration
Covers analysis and projections, the environment, and markets and finance related to all aspects of the U.S. energy.

Data Archives:

re3data.org
Re3data is a global registry of research data repositories that covers research data repositories from different academic disciplines. It includes repositories that enable permanent storage of and access to data sets to researchers, funding bodies, publishers, and scholarly institutions. re3data promotes a culture of sharing, increased access and better visibility of research data. The registry has gone live in autumn 2012 and has been funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).
SHARE
Initiative started by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and the Center for Open Science to create a searchable open database of funded research.
figshare
figshare is a repository where users can make all of their research outputs available in a citable, shareable and discoverable manner. Limit your search by type to "Dataset."
Data Repositories
This is a list hosted by Simmons College of repositories and databases for open data. Grouped by discipline.
Dryad Digital Repository
The Dryad Digital Repository is a curated resource that makes the data underlying scientific publications discoverable, freely reusable, and citable. Dryad provides a general-purpose home for a wide diversity of datatypes.
Zenodo
Zenodo is a digital repository for research across all fields of science. Limit to "Dataset."

Data by Subject:

Biology:

GenBank

GenBank is the NIH's genetic sequence database, an annotated collection of all publicly available DNA sequences. It is designed to provide and encourage access within the scientific community to the most up to date and comprehensive DNA sequence information.
Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)

With hundreds of millions of records, GBIF is the biggest biodiversity databases on the Internet. It provides free, open access to international biodiversity data.
TreeBASE

TreeBASE is a repository of peer-reviewed phylogenetic information, specifically user-submitted phylogenetic trees and the data used to generate them.

Chemistry:

ChemSpider

A free chemical structure database from the Royal Society of Chemistry providing fast text and structure search access to over 40 million structures from hundreds of data sources.

CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics by CRC Press

Publication Date: 1977 - Current

The most respected scientific reference in the world, the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics is an authoritative resource consisting of tables of data and current international recommendations on nomenclature, symbols, and units. Available online and in print.

NIST Chemistry WebBook

The NIST Chemistry WebBook provides users with easy access to chemical and physical property data for chemical species through the Internet.

Physics:

HEPData

The Durham High Energy Physics Database (HEPData) is a unique open-access repository for scattering data from experimental particle physics. It currently comprises the data points from plots and tables related to several thousand publications including those from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
Physical Reference Data (NIST)

This resource provides access to multiple sources of data/data sets at the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
WolframAlpha Examples: Physics

Provides answers to physics questions with interactive calculators that do dynamic computations based on a vast collection of built-in data, algorithms, and methods.