Let's spend an hour or so taking a quick trip around the world, to preliminarily explore some of the social research resources on the World-Wide Web. Later on you will be able to return to this web page, with its links, for further exploration at a less hurried pace.
This is a social researcher's professional travel, not a vacation: The main points on our itinerary are major data archives and research centers, with particular emphasis on those that make data available over the internet. We will also visit some additional universities, libraries, etc., along the way.
Thus we will visit research and educational organizations, but not tourist spots: The US Bureau of Labor Statistics, but not the White House. The Trinity College library, but not the Dublin pubs. The University of Sao Paulo, but not the Ipanema beach. And, yes, when it comes to the Los Angeles area, Westwood, but not Hollywood.
Language limits those of us who are not fluently multilingual. However, limited language skill is not as much of a problem on the World-Wide Web as might be expected. For one thing, on the internet, English is, well, the lingua franca. Second, many web sites offer a choice of languages. And their English, although sometimes a bit rough, is certainly better than I could do with their native languages. Finally, on reaching a web site whose content is beyond his or her language skills, one can always press the "BACK" button and return to the previous site.
On this initial trip, we will only look at posted documents, postponing any person-to-person interaction with researchers at the sites we visit. This leaves us some important reasons to go back again in the future.
Alas, the freeway traffic moves too slowly. We shall abandon that mode of transportation, and go the rest of the way by hypertext links, the native transport mode of the World-Wide Web.
In Mexico we can visit the Universidad de Guadalajara, founded in 1791, over two centuries ago.
In Costa Rica, demographic data for the region are available in Programa Centroamericano de Poblacion.
Next jump down to Brazil, and the University of Sao Paulo, where we have the choice of Portugese and English web pages.
Peru has numerous colleges and universities, including University of Lima.
Hop across the ocean to Australia, to the Australian National University, in Canberra, whose extensive online collection includes The World-Wide Web Virtual Library. One item therein is World Wide Attitudes, an electronic survey research journal edited by Mariah D. R. Evans.
We will swing north, off the eastern coast of Asia, as far up as Japan, then inland and south, clear to Singapore, then west.
In Taipei, Taiwan, Academia Sinica includes the Office of Survey Research and links to the Population Association of the ROC. Also on Taiwan is the National Taiwan University.
In Japan we visit the Institute of Social Science, at Tokyo University.
A leading institution in Korea is Seoul National University, but the way societies work is as much a puzzle there as elsewhere.
In China, we visit the Chinese Academy of Sciences
The Chinese University of Hong Kong is, naturally, located in its namesake city.
In Bangkok, Thailand, Chulalongkorn University has major research centers in population studies and other topics. These include the Asian Research Center for Migration, which has computerized its collection of migration materials and is in the process of making them directly accessible from the World-Wide Web.
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, the National University of Malaysia, is in the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur.
Calcutta, India, is the location of the Indian Statistical Institute, although its web pages, like its distinguished alumni, are spread around the globe.
We shall proceed to circumnavigate the continent, beginning in Ethiopia, at Addis Ababa University, whose web site is temporarily housed at Indiana University. Among its facilities is the Department of Demographics.
South Africa has a number of universities, including the University of Capetown.
On the West coast of Africa, Senegal has a university in Dakar
Al Akhawayn University is in Ifrane, Morocco.
Egypt has at least one internet-connected university, the American University in Cairo, which engages in scholarly exchanges with universities in the US and elsewhere.
There are several universities in Israel. Let us choose one, Haifa University.
ArabNet provides cultural information, but little about social research or educational institutions, from several nations in the Middle East and North Africa.
Spanning the border between Asia and Europe is Turkey. In Istanbul, Bogazici University was founded over a century ago, in 1863.
The Russian Academy of Sciences(RAS) web site gives a list of Russian web services, by city. The Institute of Sociology of the RAS collaborates in various research projects, including the Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, information on which is also housed at the University of North Carolina.
In Vienna, Austria, there is the Instituet fuer Hohere Studien, Institute for Advanced Studies.
Moving over to Mannheim, Germany, we next visit ZUMA, the Center for Survey Methods and Analyses.
Further north, in Cologne, is the Zentralarchiv fuer Empirische Sozialforschung, Central Archive for Empirical Social Research.
In the Netherlands we stop to visit Utrecht, whose university also houses the web site of the International Sociological Association's ISA Research Committee on Social Stratification.
In France, scientific research is organized under CNRS, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, whose social science branch is SHS, Sciences de l'Homme et de la Societe.
Spain has a number of universities, including Granada. La Universidad Complutense, in Madrid, houses the web site of the ISA, International Sociological Association, with links to its various Research Committees, such as RC33, on Logic and Methodology.
The University of Bristol houses the SOSIG, Social Science Information Gateway.
The University of Essex, U.K. houses an electronic data archive.
The University of Surrey, England, is the home of the refereed journal, Sociological Research Online.
In Ireland, the city of Dublin has both Trinity College and University College. Northern Ireland has Queen's University, in Belfast, and the multi-campus University of Ulster.
The University of Alberta, in Edmonton, houses the Electronic Journal of Sociology.
In New York City, the Electronic Reserve Shelf is at Hunter College, of the City University of New York (CUNY).
Princeton University's Office of Population Research is a leading center for demographic information, data, and training.
In Washington, DC, several federal governmental agencies provide data of interest to social scientists. These include:
Funding for research is provided by various agencies, including:
Washington, DC, is also the location of various non-governmental organizations, including:
The second major academically oriented survey organization in the U.S. is NORC, the National Opinion Research Center, in Chicago. Among its ongoing research projects is the General Social Survey.
The University of Wisconsin houses the Data and Program Library, which includes, among many other datasets, the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, a panel study which has been following some 10,000 respondents who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957. It also provides web links to other data archives.
The University of Iowa hosts the publication of the electronic journal, Current Research in Social Psychology (CRISP). This is a journal whose content is published electronically, not merely an electronic advertisement for a printed journal.
In the hills overlooking Palo Alto, California, is a most elite research center, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
And to return to our starting point, the University of California, Los Angeles, has many things online, including:
That concludes our quick trip around the world. Hope you enjoyed it, while avoiding such travel hazards as fatigue and jet lag, lines at passport control and baggage claim, and airline food. But lest you suppose that the World-Wide Web is a solution to all problems, here is a dialin usage graph which may show that not all Los Angeles area congestion is on the freeways.
If you wish to go back for a closer look at some of these sites, you may do so either now or later.
Comments and suggestions are welcome, emailed to mcfarland@soc.ucla.edu.
Thank you.
The universities listed above are only a sample. There are several lists of colleges and universities with web sites.
A list of professional associations and a list of publications are maintained at the University of Colorado.
Most of the maps linked above are from the collection at the University of Texas map collection, which includes many more, including ones showing much more detail. FAQs from UTexas map collection
Another collection of online maps, includes city maps.
There are web sites specifically devoted to acquisition of language skills. One such site is Foreign Languages for Travelers. Learning an additional language is difficult work, regardless of the medium; merely putting language lessons on the web does not perform miracles, but it may still be helpful.