About the Data Archive

Data services have been operating at UCLA since 1961 when political science professor Dwaine Marvick established the Political Behavior Archive (PBA); through his efforts, UCLA was one of the 8 founding members of the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) in 1962.  When the Survey Research Center (SRC) was formed in 1964,under the direction of Eve Fielder, the PBA was merged with a planned Archive Data Library the SRC was to house. In 1977, Donald Treiman (Distinguished Professor, Sociology) was instrumental in designing and defining a newframework for the Data Archive. Under the guidance and stewardship of William A.V. Clark (Professor, Geography) the Archive developed into the popular campus facility of today. The Archive was re-organized into the UCLA Library in 2014.The Social Science Data Archive collection consists of surveys, enumerations, public opinion polls , and de-identified administrative records. Topics of studies include political attitudes and behavior; social and economic attitudes and behaviors; studies of health status and health outcomes; families, children, and women; international surveys of occupational and social mobility; the Los Angeles County Social Surveys; California Polls; and, census data for the United States and other countries.

Material from SSDA are used with software programs, such as SPSS, SAS, STATA, and R to carry out statistical analysis. Assistance is provided by the IDRE Statistical consulting office.

In addition, the SSDA provides access to data from the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) and the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research (Roper).

Our website provides access to our catalog of holdings, resources to help you find and analyze data, and tutorials to enrich your knowledge of data management practices and procedures. We provide advice in preparing data management plans and in applying for access to secure or restricted access datasets. If you are interested in sharing your data and deed assistance in finding an appropriate archive, or would like help to document your data for the purpose of sharing, please contact us for further information.

Instructional support, especially support that links research with instruction is also a mainstay of operations.  The Data Archive is one of the key support components in those disciplines that provide instruction in research methods, survey design and methods, statistics, and data analysis. Throughout the campus, data provided by the Archive is used by faculty in courses to transmit pedagogy, illustrate theory and develop understanding of social, political, demographic, economic, geographic and historical trends and issues.