Apply for a Library Data Award
The University of Chicago Library is pleased to announce the inaugural opening of its Library Data Award to support student research. Expanding on UChicago librarians’ regular purchases of datasets and subscription databases (see the How do I find data or statistics? guide for examples), this award program invites UChicago students to directly request data that is needed for their research. The program further aligns data collection development with user needs.
The award program will fund the Library’s purchase of eligible data for undergraduate and graduate student research. Examples of data purchased or subscribed to in the past, include:
- International Census Data, such as for Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador, and Costa Rica
- Historical U.S. Census Data, for example Geolytic’s 1990 Census Boundaries
- Linguistic corpora, such as Global web-based English (GloWbE, 1,800,000 texts)
- Historical manuscripts, such as 19th-century petitions from Slavery and the Law, 1775-1867
Interested students are encouraged to reach out to the subject librarian that specializes in their area of study to discuss the data needed for their project before completing an application. Students may also contact us via the Ask a Librarian service to be connected to their subject librarian.
Review of applications begins on February 1, 2022. Recipients will be notified and the Library will begin the purchasing process on March 1, 2022.
The Library Data Award program compliments other data support services offered at UChicago Library. For example, the Library also supports:
Subject and data specialists are available to faculty and students for research consultations. Librarians can also help faculty integrate data into their classroom instruction, for example creating assignments with data from the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR).
Please reach out to the Ask a Librarian to be connected with a specialist.
