Collection Spotlight: Diverse Data on Diversity
by Paul H. Bern, Ph.D., Research Data Services Librarian
There are many sources and resources for data on diversity – broadly defined. The trick to finding the data in which you are most interested is knowing where to look. A quick search on Google for “data on diversity” comes up with about 1,720,000,000 items! Even worse, the vast majority of the items don’t even bring you to actual data, just reports and articles on Diversity that happen to mention “data.”
The web sites below all compile sources of actual data on various aspects of “Diversity.” Some of the sources require a subscription, especially the business databases, others are free to use. Syracuse University Libraries has subscriptions to many data sources.
- IASSIST (International Association for Social Science Information Service and Technology) is an international organization of professionals working with information technology and data services to support research and teaching. Their interest group on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Data Resources has compiled a guide to help those looking for data on these topics.
- The United States Census Bureau collects more data on its population, businesses and land than any other country in the world. The Bureau’s website section on Racial and Ethnic Diversity serves as a portal to data, visualizations and reports. Even if you do not want to use Census data, their discussions of collecting and analyzing diversity data are well worth reading.
- Diversity in the workplace is an important topic. The Graduate School of Business at Stanford University has a guide for Researching Diversity in the Workplace. It lists several subscription-based data sources, most of which Syracuse University Libraries provides.
- Last, but certainly not least, ICPSR has literally thousands of studies on diversity and related topics. The data at ICSPR is free to all SU students, faculty and staff. You can search their holdings as much as you like, but you will need to create an account if you want to download any of the data. A good portion of their holdings are also open to the public; these will have an “Open ICPSR” logo next to their listing.
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