UIUC Microdata Resources at a Glance

Microdata Resources in the Government Documents Library

The Government Documents Library is the largest and most comprehensive U.S. Depository Library in east-central Illinois. One of the four federal depositories in Illinois' 15th Congressional district and one of two in Champaign County (the University of Illinois Law Library is the other), the Government Documents Library receives 85% of the selections currently available through the Depository Library Program. Major statistical series on population, housing, transportation, health, business, education, agriculture, and crime comprise core component of the publications it receives. Increasingly, government information and documents are being produced in electronic format, including CD-ROM products, the "GPO Access" program, and a growing collection of Internet accessible resources and files. In addition, the library has a great collection of statistical indexes. These all make the library a unqualified central reference point for all kinds of statistical data resources, including microdata files. 

Microdata Resources in the office of CRESS

The CRESS acts as a data archive that helps students, researchers, and instructors access and use computerized social science data. The office maintains the university's membership in the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), which provides members of the UIUC community access to the world's largest archive of computerized social science data. The CRESS  provides an archive of frequently used data on the university's statistical mainframe (ux6). Datasets included here are the Public Use Samples of the 1980 and 1990 censuses, Current Population Surveys from 1968-the present, several recent American National Election Studies, and others. To get an account on ux6, please apply in person at the account services desk in 1420 DCL. Data can be provided in many different statistical formats: SAS, SPSS, Stata, and others; and on many different media types. In addition, the CRESS also maintains a library of codebooks, documentation, and errata; and provide consulting in the use of specific datasets. More importantly, the CRESS has a PC lab with a variety of statistical software for users to manipulate and analyze data.

Suggested Strategies

The Government Documents Library has a broad scope of data collection, and a well-rounded bulk of reference/access points that connect the users to larger bases of information resources, while the CRESS has its strengths in handling data formats and computer-based data management, as well as a high familiarity with the ICPSR data holdings. The following are some suggestions about where you should start.

Scenarios that you should start with the library:

• If you are novice in seeking and using microdata, and you are not yet familiar with any data sources, then you are strongly recommended to talk to a  librarian in the Government Documents Library first, so that you can get a general picture of what resources are available and what your options are;
• If you are not sure whether or not the kind of data you are looking for is available, then you should start out by asking a librarian in the Government Documents Library;
• If you are sure the kind of data you are looking for is available but not sure about where you can locate it, then you are also recommended to start out with the librarians in the Government Documents Library;
• If you are looking for a data file not archived and unavailable at ICPSR, you may prefer to talk to a librarian  in the Government Documents Library.

• If you know the data file you are looking for is available at the CRESS collection or at the ICPSR, then you should start with the CRESS data archivist;
• If you already know the data source, and you need a computer facility to download/extract it to your server or disk space, then you should start with the CRESS; 
• If you have a problem with data format, then you should start with the CRESS;
• If you need help in manipulating your extracted data, including subsetting, merging, transposing, etc., then you should start with the CRESS.

• A Zip disk or floppy disk (Zip is preferred);
• An Unix account that allows you to use FTP for data extraction, storage, and analysis;
• Being detail oriented and perhaps willing to adjust your research more or less according to data availability.