Open Access Databases: Social Sciences

The Archive of Market and Social Research (AMSR) is a volunteer-led charity set up to archive UK market and social research going back to the 1940s and make it easily and freely accessible online to, among other users, academic researchers. It is a living, growing archive, comprising books, research journals, data abstracts and conference papers from the output of respected practitioners over many decades, and it forms an inspiring source of insight for those seeking to explore the dynamics of change, particularly in consumer behaviour.

The Central and Eastern European Online Library is the leading repository offering highly specialized and comprehensive collection of full text indexed documents in the fields of Humanities and Social Science publications from and about Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe.

A gateway to the major social science data archives of Europe. Includes links to other non-profit, social science data archiving/distributing organizations in Africa, Asia, Australia and the Americas. Formerly known as "Social Science Data Archives - North America".

Deep Blue is the University of Michigan's permanent, safe, and accessible service for representing our rich intellectual environment. The primary goal of Deep Blue is to provide access to the work that makes Michigan a leader in research, teaching, and creativity. By representing our scholars, from faculty through students, as individuals and as members of communities, Deep Blue provides a framework for preserving and finding the best scholarly and artistic work done at the University. The collection may be browsed by subject, title, author, and date.

Articles, conference papers, book chapters, dissertations and other documents in the sciences and technology, but also the social sciences, humanities, education, business, and law. Open-access database created by a group of Spanish universities under the leadership of the Universidad de la Rioja, Logrono, Spain. Free article-alert service for registered users.

UC's open access repository. Contains books, journals, working papers, conference publications, postprints, theses, and dissertations.

Presents results of public opinion surveys on social, political, and economic attitudes and issues in the European Union.

An international consortium of more than 750 academic institutions and research organizations, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) provides leadership and training in data access, curation, and methods of analysis for the social science research community. ICPSR maintains a data archive of more than 250,000 files of research in the social and behavioral sciences. It hosts 21 specialized collections of data in education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, terrorism, and other fields.

Publishes reports by the National Academy of Sciences on science and science policy. Topics include agriculture, biology, computers, energy, the environment, engineering, food, medicine and health, space, social sciences, transportation, and more.

OOIR lists the latest articles from more than 200 Politics and International Relations journals to help scholars stay up-to-date with the latest contents of political research. Journal-tracking started on 15 August 2018. Articles published before that day are not listed here.

Covers the disciplines of sociology, criminology, political science and women's studies. Presented with a Canadian emphasis and perspective.

System for Information on Grey Literature in Europe, is your open access to 700.000 bibliographical references of grey literature (paper) produced in Europe and allows you to export records and locate the documents. OpenGrey covers Science, Technology, Biomedical Science, Economics, Social Science and Humanities.

The site is an archive of the PASCAL and FRANCIS bibliographic databases in exact, human and social sciences, produced by the Inist-CNRS from 1972 to 2015. It provides access to more than 20 millions references (articles, patents, maps, conferences, books, reports and thesis) in exact sciences and technology, in biological and medical sciences, in art, archaeology, economics, ethnology, geography, history of science and technology, literature, linguistics, administrative and legal sciences, education and religion sciences. Stopped in 2015, this archive does not report any new documentary resource.

Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts.

PolicyArchive is an innovative, new digital archive of global, non-partisan public policy research. It makes use of the power, efficiency, and economy of modern Internet technology to collect and disseminate summaries and full texts, videos, reports, briefs, and multimedia material of think tank, university, government, and foundation-funded policy research.

SocArXiv is dedicated to opening up social science, to reach more people more effectively, to improve research, and build the future. SocArXiv is directed by a steering committee of sociologists and members of the research library community.

Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is devoted to the rapid worldwide dissemination of social science research and is composed of a number of specialized research networks in each of the social sciences.

An index to 139 print compilations, web sites and other resources for test instruments with nearly 14,000 tests and measurements compiled from 1967 - 2013. This resource does not include the tests but indexes them in order to find them in other published resources. While not an exhaustive index this is an excellent resource to help those who are searching for reliable instruments. It also includes many instruments outside of the social sciences, including many in the health sciences. Tests and Measures in the Social Sciences was developed and is maintained by Helen Hough of the University of Texas at Arlington.

A collection of UN documents, speeches, votes, publications, maps, images and sounds, etc.

Web of Conferences, managed by EDP Sciences, is an open access platform devoted to the publication of scientific conference proceedings. The platform offers high quality services for the publication and dissemination of conference proceedings in the areas of Physics & Astronomy, Engineering & Technology, Health Sciences, Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and Computer Sciences.

AidData is a development research and innovation lab at the College of William & Mary. AidData's work crosses sectors and disciplines, and serves the unique needs of both policy and academic communities, as well as acting between the two. In addition to datasets, this resource provides full text access to working papers, policy reports and other publications.

ALFRED® allows you to retrieve vintage versions of economic data that were available on specific dates in history. In general, economic data for past observation periods are revised as more accurate estimates become available. As a result, previous vintages of data can be superseded and may no longer be available from various data sources. Vintage or real time economic data allows academics to reproduce others' research, build more accurate forecasting models, and analyze economic policy decisions using the data available at the time.

Summarizes, for a specific period, the economic transactions of an economy with the rest of the world. Reports total goods, services, factor income, and current transfers an economy receives from or provides to the rest of the world as well as capital transfers and changes in each economy's external financial claims and liabilities. Contains time series data from 1945 and allows subscribers to browse the database, select series of interest, display the selected series in a spreadsheet format, and save the selected series for transfer to other software systems such as Microsoft Excel. The data include aggregate as well as detailed information in the form of analytical and standard component presentations for countries. Additional documentation is included with descriptions of methodologies, compilation practices, and data sources used by individual member countries in compiling their balance of payments and international investment position statistics. In addition, the BOP online service contains data as reported by the balance of payments correspondents to the IMF Statistics Department.

Time series data for US national and state income accounts as well as international trade and investment. Also includes U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) by industry and input-output tables for select years.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics of the US Department of Labor produces some of the nation's most widely followed measures of the economy, including the latest numbers for the Consumer Price Index, unemployment rate, and the Producer Price.

Price indexes are available for the U.S., the four Census regions, nine Census divisions, two size of city classes, eight cross-classifications of regions and size-classes, and for 23 local areas. Indexes are available for major groups of consumer expenditures (food and beverages, housing, apparel, transportation, medical care, recreation, education and communications, and other goods and services), for items within each group, and for special categories, such as services.

A search portal for economics and business studies published in multiple languages from global sources (2002 - present). A database resources in business and economics cataloged by the German National Library for Economics and the University and City Library of Cologne. Useful for locating economic statistics and working papers.

Convenient access to commonly-used data sets from many governmental agencies. Allows selection of variables and generation of customized tables in GIF or PDF form, and in some cases, as an Excel file.

Available from April 1995 forward, this monthly publication is prepared by the Council of Economic Advisers for the Joint Economic Committee. It provides economic information on gross domestic product, income, employment, production, business activity, prices, money, credit, security markets, Federal finance, and international statistics. Economic Indicators back to 1948 are made available through FRASER , the Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research.

EconPapers provides access to RePEc, the world's largest collection of on-line Economics working papers, journal articles and software. The database also includes books and chapters.

FRASER is both a digital library of economic history and a repository of the institutional history of the Federal Reserve System. FRASER preserves and provides access to economic and banking data and policy documents.

FRED Economic data provides comprehensive economic data, including banking & finance, population, employment, labor market, national accounts, production & business activity, prices, international data, U.S. regional data, and academic data. This database is governed by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Global Economic Monitor provides daily and monthly commentary on global economic conditions along with direct access to high frequency and forecast data that is refreshed daily. It provides analysis of current economic trends, economic, financial and commodity data indicators, an extensive database including growth and commodity forecasts and access to the iSimulate modeling platform.

Citations and full-text access to thousands of working papers, books and book chapters, and articles from peer-reviewed journals in economics. (REPEC - Research Papers in Economics) [1995 - present]

This resource is a part of the larger IMF website. It contains IMF reports, including the IMF country reports series, and publications arranged alphabetically by country. Includes: annual meetings speeches; Article IV staff reports; heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC) documents; joint staff assessments; joint staff advisory notes; International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) statements; letters of intent; news briefs; policy framework papers; poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSP); press releases; public information notices (PIN); staff papers; transcripts; surveys; and other publications.

Current monthly economic statistics for most of the countries and areas of the world. Includes construction, energy, finance, trade, labour, manufacturing, trade, labor, prices and more.

Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, and business professionals. NBER-affiliated researchers study a wide range of topics and they employ many different methods in their work. Key focus areas include developing new statistical measurements, estimating quantitative models of economic behavior, and analyzing the effects of public policies.

The National Historical Geographic Information System is a project to create and freely disseminate a database incorporating all available aggregate census information for the United States between 1790 and 2000. The data being incorporated into NHGIS covers social and economic topics, such as income, education, labor, housing, elections, religion, and agriculture. When complete, NHGIS will provide data for various levels of geography.

OECD.Stat includes data and metadata for OECD countries and selected non-member economies. Data may be accessed by keyword or theme via the selection of key indicators.

Provides access to a set of national accounts economic time series covering many countries. Useful for comparing GDP and other economic data across different countries.

The PGI dataset provides internationally comparable data for the Group of 20 economies (G-20) and economies with systemically important financial sectors that are not members of the G-20. The PGI facilitates the monitoring of economic and financial developments for these jurisdictions. Launched in 2009, the PGI website is hosted by the IMF and is a joint undertaking of the Inter-Agency Group of Economic and Financial Statistics (IAG). This source is meant to provide current, real-time access to financial data rather than historical access. Geared toward policy-analysis, decision making in current time.

Free access to detailed global trade data. UN Comtrade is a repository of official international trade statistics and relevant analytical tables. All data is accessible through API.

The data centre consists primarily of two statistical databases, Annual core indicators and Short-term indicators for Asia and the Pacific. The Annual core indicators database includes time series data for selected indicators covering a wide range of issues such as migration, education, health, poverty, gender, employment, economy, government finance, employment, transport, and environment. Among other indicators, this database contains data published in the Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific 2008. The time series are generally longer and more complete in the database. The Short-term indicators for Asia and the Pacific database contains time series data for 31 of the regional members and associate members of ESCAP, and is designed to provide up-to-date monthly (or quarterly) data to assess economic trends for countries or areas in the region. The online database covers the period from January 2003 and is updated every quarter.

Collection of data and statistics from official statistical systems organized and financed by national governments.

The World Bank Open Knowledge Repository (OKR) is The World Bank’s official open access repository for its research outputs and knowledge products. By extending and improving access to World Bank research, the World Bank aims to encourage innovation and allow anyone in the world to use Bank knowledge to help improve the lives of those living in poverty. OKR contains annual reports, books, journals, technical papers, country strategy documents, Economic and Sector Work (ESW) studies, working papers, speeches, etc.

The WEO database is created during the biannual World Economic Outlook (WEO) exercise, which begins in January and June of each year and results in the WEO publication, which is released in May and October. Selected series that are available in the publication are now available on this website at the time of the release of the WEO press version (late April and September). If necessary, these figures will be revised in order to maintain consistency with the published World Economic Outlook. The WEO exercise is coordinated by the World Economic Studies Division in the Research Department. The projections and analysis contained in the World Economic Outlook are an integral element of the IMF's ongoing surveillance of economic development and policies in its member countries and of the global economic system.

A portal of educational resources and services built specifically for use by those in Community and Technical Colleges but free for anyone to use. AMSER is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) as part of the National Science Digital Library, and is being created by a team of project partners led by Internet Scout.

A service of the United States Children's Bureau, Child Welfare Information Gateway connects child welfare and related professionals to comprehensive information and resources to help protect children and strengthen families. The site features the latest on topics from prevention to permanency, including child abuse and neglect, foster care, and adoption.

A preprint server for the education research community, EdArXiv provides free, open access, open source archives for education.

EducatiOn-line is a freely accessible database of the full text of conference papers, working papers and electronic literature which supports educational research, policy and practice.

ERIC is a bibliographic database of more than 1.1 million education-related citations going back to 1966. This database also includes more than 107,000 full-text non-journal documents (issued 1993-2004).

IEA (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement) is an international cooperative of national research institutions, governmental research agencies, scholars, and analysts working to research, understand, and improve education worldwide.

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education in the U.S. and other nations. NCES is located within the U.S. Department of Education and the Institute of Education Sciences. NCES fulfills a Congressional mandate to collect, collate, analyze, and report complete statistics on the condition of American education; conduct and publish reports; and review and report on education activities internationally.

Education related publications from RAND Corporation, a nonprofit and nonpartisan association committed to the public interest.

Compilation of more than 1 million digital documents for the history of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic. Includes correspondence, records, reports, photographs, maps, drawings, and a vast array of other material.

The Shamaa Database includes bibliographic citations for scholarly education literature published in Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, KSA, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, UAE, and Yemen. Publications covered include books, book chapters, articles, and theses / dissertations in Arabic, English or French on various aspects of education research and practice.

digitalculturebooks is an imprint of the University of Michigan Press dedicated to publishing work in new media studies and the emerging field of digital humanities. All of the books are available for free online and for sale in print.

"1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War” is an English-language virtual reference work on the First World War. The multi-perspective, open-access knowledge base is the result of an international collaborative project involving more than 1,000 authors, editors, and partners from over fifty countries. More than 1,000 articles will be gradually published. Innovative navigation schemes based on Semantic Media Wiki technology provide nonlinear access to the encyclopedia’s content.

Site contains documents related to the study of the American Presidency, including public papers, annual messages to Congress, inaugural addresses, radio addresses, acceptance speeches, presidential candidates debates, party platforms, elections data, and an audio/video archive.

Provides citations to U.S. federal government publications. Contains references to books, reports, studies, serials, maps and other publications. Topics covered include finance, business, demographics, foreign relations, public health and social issues.

DISA is a freely accessible online scholarly resource focusing on the socio-political history of South Africa, particularly the struggle for freedom during the period from 1950 to the first democratic elections in 1994, providing a wealth of material on this fascinating period of the country’s history. Much time, creative thought and debate goes into the selection of the content, and participation and input from interested persons, scholars and institutions in South Africa and overseas is encouraged.

In 2008 Egypt witnessed a remarkable experience rich in political and democratic practices, and the sites captured back then should be revisited in the context of current events. In Spring 2008 the April 6 Youth Movement, an Egyptian activist group established to support the workers in an industrial town, appeared in local politics as an active force. It was followed by other opposition movements calling for democracy, social justice, free and fair elections and civil resistance. The group would later feature prominently in the Egyptian protests of 2011. Other prominent websites in this archive include The Muslim Brotherhood which rose to power in 2012 before their downfall again in 2013. The Kefaya (Enough) movement was a group of various political forces aimed to establish a new government in Egypt in opposition to the Mubarak regime, and was a prominent opposition movement in Egypt’s early 21st century history. Important events in 2008 which had a large effect on political discourse concerned Egyptian gas exports to Israel which sparked large protests within the country. All in all, this collection of websites represents emerging expressionism by Egyptian political parties and movements, along with blogs and news media sites of the time. These sites may be considered a form of virtual ephemera, appearing prior to the advent of popular social media channels.

A major marker in the country’s political history, the Egyptian elections of 2012 received global coverage and witnessed a proliferation of political platforms advertised on websites associated with various parties and distinguished political personalities. Perhaps for the first time, popular social media channels covered the events on a daily basis, thus providing documentation of what was happening on the ground and people’s opinions of it. This collection of websites includes many of these Egyptian parties’ websites, in addition to the coverage of major news agencies and social media outlets. As a result, this collection provides a comprehensive overall picture of this historic event as it unfolded and the ensuing developments.

The Foreign Relations of the United States series presents the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity. The series, which is produced by the State Department's Office of the Historian, began in 1861 and now comprises more than 350 individual volumes. The volumes published over the last two decades increasingly contain declassified records from all the foreign affairs agencies. Foreign Relations volumes contain documents from Presidential libraries, Departments of State and Defense, National Security Council, Central Intelligence Agency, Agency for International Development, and other foreign affairs agencies as well as the private papers of individuals involved in formulating U.S. foreign policy.

Frontline Diplomacy: The Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training at the Library of Congress makes available interview transcripts from the oral history archives of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST).  These transcripts present a window into the lives of U.S. diplomats and the major diplomatic crisis and issues that the United States faced during the second half of the 20th century and the early part of the 21st.  Most of the interviews involve post-World War II diplomacy, from the late 1940s to the present day, but the collection also includes accounts of Americans involved in Iraq and Afghanistan after 2003. It also contains interviews from special projects on oral histories, including women ambassadors, minority officers, foreign assistance officers, labor specialists, and Foreign Service spouses. New interviews are continually being conducted and added to the collection.

Human Rights Watch investigates and reports on abuses happening in all corners of the world.

The Iran Social Science Data Portal is an English- and Persian-language online portal that features social science data on Iran, including socioeconomic data, electoral data, information on political parties, and translations of selected laws and regulations. It aims to provide a service to journalists, academics, policymakers, and others interested in analyzing political and socioeconomic developments in contemporary Iran. The project is funded by a grant from the Social Science Research Council, Princeton University and Syracuse University.

Official Documents is the official reference facility for Command and departmentally sponsored House of Commons Papers. From May 2005 onwards, all Command Papers and House of Commons Papers, as well as Key Departmental Papers, are available for free on the site in PDF format. A selection of key papers published before May 2005 are also available for free in the archive.

Open States is a project of the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization committed to making government transparent, open and accountable through the Internet. Open States is a collection of tools that allows users to track what is happening in their state's capitol by aggregating information from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. Users can browse by state to see an overview of legislators, committees, bills and sessions. Legislator pages include bills sponsored, voting record, and media clips.

PolicyArchive is a digital archive of global, non-partisan public policy research. It collects and disseminates summaries and full texts, videos, reports, briefs, and multimedia material of think tank, university, government, and foundation-funded policy research. It offers a subject index, an internal search engine, abstracts, and email notifications of newly added research.

A non-governmental project of the Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) at Georgetown University, PDBA offers centralized and systematized information about institutions and political processes, national constitutions, branches of government, elections, political constitutional studies and other subjects related to the strengthening of democracy in the region.

The Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States contains material that was compiled and published by the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration. It includes volumes covering the administrations of Presidents Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. Each volume contains the papers and speeches of the President of the United States that were issued by the Office of the Press Secretary during the specified time period. The material is presented in chronological order, and the dates shown in the headings are the dates of the documents or events.

SIPRI database covering areas in the field of international relations and security, such as hard facts on armed conflicts and peace keeping, arms production and trade, military expenditure, armed forces and conventional weapons holding, nuclear weapons, chronology, statistics and other reference data.

The Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) offers a number of datasets on organised violence and peacemaking, all of which can be downloaded for free.

Offers a wide spectrum of animated and interactive visualizations of how Americans voted in elections over the past years. You can also find expert analysis and commentary videos that discuss some of the most interesting and significant trends in American political history. Provides cinematic and interactive maps, and analysis, of the Presidential elections in the US from 1840-2004. Focuses on election data to the county level (rather than state). Allows users to compare elections as well as recognize the significance of individual elections by geographic region, political party, voter turnout, voter demographics, and more.

PsyArXiv is an open-access, preprint digital archive dedicated to psychological science that gives the public free, first-hand access to new science.

PsycCRITIQUES, a database of the American Psychological Association, ended publication in Fall 2017. This database covers book and film reviews for published materials related to psychology. Content was previously published as the APA journal, Contemporary Psychology.

Full text journals and monographs produced by the Department of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. Included are books, journal articles, book chapters, reference entries, book reviews, oral histories, obituaries and some gray literature, as well as images, sound recordings and audio-visual materials. Anthrohub is a digital archive of seven current and historical University of California serial publications in anthropology and archaeology.

The Anthropological Index Online (AIO) is published by the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) in cooperation with Anthropology Library and Research Centre at the British Museum. It is an index to articles in journals taken by the Library and to films held at the Royal Anthropological Institute. The Library, which incorporates the former RAI library, holds some 4,000 periodical titles (1,500 current) covering all branches and areas of anthropology. Nearly 800 journals, published in more than 40 languages, are indexed on a continuing basis. Records cover 1957 to the present.

This resource is a fully searchable collection of the Proceedings of the National Conference on Social Welfare (1874-1982). These proceedings were originally issued under earlier names of the Conference including Boards of Public Charities; Charities and Corrections; and Social Work.

SocArXiv is dedicated to opening up social science, to reach more people more effectively, to improve research, and build the future. SocArXiv is directed by a steering committee of sociologists and members of the research library community.

This database includes over 29,000 photographs from original excavations, personal collecting, reference books and magazines, as well as images of artifacts within the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology's collections.

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology (CEA) is
a growing open-access teaching and learning resource.
Its goal is to facilitate access to scholarship in
Social Anthropology for experts and non-experts worldwide.
All entries are written and peer-reviewed by leading academics.