Research Guides: Freely Available Resources for Alumni: Social Sciences

Data & Statistics

Census Data (Data.Census.Gov)
Data.census.gov is the platform to access data and digital content from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
Promotes a better understanding of the U.S. economy by providing the most timely, relevant, and accurate economic accounts data in an objective and cost-effective manner.
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES); Institute of Education Sciences (IES)
NCES is the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education in the U.S. and other nations.

For more ideas check out some of the material on the Social Science Data Research Guide for open resources.

Free Articles & Open Repositories

Pew Research Center
Reports based on conducting U.S. public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research.
ERIC - Public Access
Topics cover all levels of education and all educational specialties, such as multilingual education, health education, and testing.
PsyArXiv
A notable preprint server which allows researchers to make their findings available to the public prior to publication in a peer reviewed journal.
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Maintained by the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Sciences (SIPS) and the Center for Open Science.
SocArXiv
Open access platform for social scientist to upload working papers, preprints, and published papers, with the option to link data and code.
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), World Factbook
The World Factbook provides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 267 world entities.
EDGAR
Access to all public companies mandatory filings to the Securities Exchange Commission. Find 10-K , 20-F and many other SEC documents.
United Nations Global Impact
Working to drive change across all aspects of corporate sustainability; produces a library of reports and analysis supporting ten environmental, social and governance principles.

Open Access Journals

Open access journals are peer-reviewed, scholarly journals that are free, digital, and available to anyone online. Below are some OA journals with a broad, social science emphasis.

SAGE Open: Articles may span the full spectrum of the social and behavioral sciences and the humanities.
AERA Open: from the American Educational Research Association

Open Access eBooks

Berghahn Books

Primary Sources

Library of Congress Digital Collections
Primary source and archival materials covering topics such as art and architecture, performing arts, technology and applied sciences
Making of America (University of Michigan)
A digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology.