Journalism Research Guide: Data

Data Sources & Sets

Open Data

  • NYC Open Data: New York City's public data depository.
  • Data.gov: Catalog of over 335,000 datasets from the U.S. government.

Population Data

  • Data.census.gov: for current Census data from the American Community Survey, decennial Census, and other population and demographic surveys
    • American Community Survey: nationwide survey conducted for the purpose of producing a socio-demographic description of the population. The survey is conducted on a continuous basis with reports being released annually.
    • Decennial Census: official determination of the number of people living in the United States. Conducted every ten years.
  • Current Population Survey: primary source of labor force statistics for the population of the United States.
  • Social Explorer: for current and historical Census data in a user-friendly interface, including the ability to make maps.

GIS/Geospatial Data

Research Data Management

The Columbia Libraries has two departments to assist with finding research data, data management, textual analysis, digital scholarship, technical help, and more:

  • Digital Scholarship provides a host of research services including software and training for digital humanities tools, scanning/digitization, textual analysis, scholarly publishing, research impact and metrics, open access, podcasting, research computing, integrating digital methods in the classroom, and crafting a professional presence online.
  • Research Data Services provides a range of services and programs, hosts events and workshops, and partners with faculty and students in collaborative projects to help you find, evaluate, understand, steward and use data.

Data Citations

Cite data to give the data producer proper credit and to enable readers of your work to access the data, for their own use, or to replicate your results. Whether citing data, or expecting others to cite your data make sure that the following elements are provided:

  • Creators
  • Date: year of publication rather than collection or coverage
  • Title
  • Version or edition
  • Publisher, data center or repository
  • Identifier and/or permanent URL

Also see: