The collection at DISC includes major surveys from a variety of distributors (including ICPSR), U.S. government data, and locally produced archival datasets. The collection is cross-disciplinary, reflecting research interests in the social sciences. Longitudinal surveys, macroeconomic indicators, election studies, population studies, socialization patterns, poverty measures, labor force participation, public opinion polls, education and health data, and local/national/international governmental statistics are among the subjects represented.
DISC Catalog:
DISC library holdings may be searched by title, subject, principal investigator or abstract words, in the web-based DISC catalog. Note that DISC's holdings are not included in UW-Madison Library Catalog.
Some DISC holdings are restricted to use by the UW-Madison community only, while others are publicly available to all.
DISC Archive:
The DISC Online Data Archive is a subset of datasets from the DISC collection that are made publicly available for direct web download. Many of these 40+ datasets stem from research at the UW-Madison or involve Wisconsin-related themes.
Internet Crossroads in the Social Sciences
DISC maintains the Internet Crossroads as a searchable, annotated list of data-related links to web sites useful to social science researchers.
ICPSR:
The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), housed at the University of Michigan, maintains and provides access to a large archive of social science data for research and instruction. DISC holds the ICPSR membership for UW-Madison, providing the campus with access to ICPSR's over 7,500 research studies. Online data analysis is available for over 700 of those studies.
Roper Center:
DISC holds the UW-Madison membership to the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, providing access for UW-Madison to over 18,000 public-opinion surveys dating back to the 1930s. Most Roper Center datasets can be downloaded directly, and some can be analyzed online.