Intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) conduct surveys; publish research findings; collect and disseminate high quality statistics; produce reports, articles, newsletters, and much more. In short, IGOs can be a terrific resource for you when conducting your own research. Examples: Imagine you are looking for articles and data related to education and gender inequality. You wouldn’t want to […]
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is “the oldest international organization in the UN family….(providing leadership) for information and communication technology issues.” The ITU has just launched its “History of ITU Portal” which contains ITU historical documents from radio, telegraph and telephone conferences. Note, the process of digitization is currently underway and as of this date […]
Need to look at US government documents that don’t seem to be publicly available? All may not be lost! Thanks to the tireless efforts of journalists, researchers, and average citizens thousands of documents that would otherwise remain closed to public scrutiny are made available each year through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Even better: […]
After discovering this morning that a brand of potato-leek soup might have undeclared clams in it….this seemed like an appropriate database to highlight. The Healthy Canadians website has played host to a database of recalled food and consumer products since 2007. You can search by product or by food and the site also provides links […]
Now seems like a good time to look at government sources of information regarding the upcoming winter Olympics. There is an impressive array of information freely available on the web from government sites: reports, contracts, statistics, financial accounts, media releases etc. 2010 Winter Games Secretariat: From the BC government this site is a rich source […]
The online Atlas of Canada from Natural Resources Canada has recently added a theme page covering the upcoming 2010 Olympic games. “In advance of the 2010 Winter Olympics, the Atlas of Canada is pleased to provide to the public a special series of maps on the following themes. The maps in the 2010 Winter Olympics […]
The US Census Bureau conducts an official census every 10 years, with the next one coming up in March 2010. In between years the Bureau conducts a variety of smaller-scale nationwide surveys, including the American Community Survey (ACS). The ACS is sent to approximately 3 million households. The most recent 3 year estimates based on […]
The Washington Post has a very useful site up for anyone interested in reading/watching President Obama’s key speeches. It provides a free database of speeches – the transcribed text as well as video clips of the speech being delivered whenever possible. You can search for speeches by keyword, click on an issue-based tag or browse […]
While not a new resource, I only just came across this one today and it’s a terrific source of public opinion in Europe. “Since 1973, the European Commission has been monitoring the evolution of public opinion in the Member States, thus helping the preparation of texts, decision-making and the evaluation of its work. Our surveys […]
Google.com has had some US public data embedded in its search results for a while now, but as of November 11 the World Bank’s public data has been added to Google search results. According to the Official Google blog, “17 World Development Indicators are now conveniently available to you in Google search…. Complete list of […]