Library guides
Subject: Information and Communication SciencesComputer science, Multimedia and Telecommunications
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Data sources for storytelling
Finding and compiling the information is the first stage of data journalism. To help you in this task, we offer you primary information sources from different geographical and thematic areas.
Catalonia
Managed by the Secretariat for Transparency and Open Government at the Ministry of Transparency and Foreign and Institutional Relations and Affairs, it encourages the use and reuse of information from the administration. The data comes from different public bodies of the Government of Catalonia, available in different formats and grouped in the data catalogue.
It ranges from the most municipal issues to Barcelona Provincial Council contracting. It provides an overview of what happens at provincial level in Barcelona.
To use it, consult the pages of the ministries to see the data posted and how it is structured in each case.
Much of the data belongs to the Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE). It is worth noting that the IDESCAT data at municipal level is much more detailed than that of the INE. For example, the service “The municipality in figures” provides many variables at a municipal level.
It is not related to its Spanish equivalent, the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas. They do not share studies or variables. It is only useful if you are interested in Catalonia.
In recent months this website has extensively renewed all datasets. It has updated them and uploaded new data.
It features a large amount of data, ranging from taxi stands to public lighting, covering many fields.
A selection of statistical data on the cultural sector in Catalonia. It includes statistics on topics such as museums, cinemas, the music industry and books.
Spain
At national level we should take into account that for all powers decentralized to the autonomous regions, there is no centralized and homogenized data. This can mean, for instance, that in some cases there are information gaps.
The public datasets of the different state administrations are automatically uploaded on this website. Its disadvantage is that the loading filters are slow but it helps locate how much data there is on a specific issue and to go to the original source.
At a journalistic level the microdata broken down by town is of particular interest, as it allows you to explore the analysis in depth. In general, any issue we want to study has related data readily available from the INE, and it is worth checking before writing.
It provides information about sessions and includes links to the Parliament’s newsletters, proceedings, voting and speeches by the MPs.
The data concerns prisons, traffic, asylum, civil protection, terrorism and citizen security. It is one year behind with the publication of data.
The data includes registrations, accidents, driving licences, drivers’ census and several publications.
Data on gender-based violence, investment in health and resources for dependency. You should take into account that both at health and social service level, the responsibilities are decentralized to the autonomous regions and therefore there may be a lack of homogenized information at Spanish State level.
Statistical dataset on the state military apparatus and defence policy. The data is for the last one or two years.
It encompasses sectors such as fisheries, agriculture, rural development, livestock, price observatory, climate barometer, food consumption, industries and the environment.
There are also links to other websites of interest related to the powers of this ministry.
It encompasses areas such as construction, mobility, housing, urban developments, transport and state infrastructures.
Comprises the following fields: university education, primary and secondary education, museums, theatres, cinemas, sports and competitions.
The most notable data covers the main short-term indicators such as industrial production, energy consumption and the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
The data is divided into themes such as: activities of the bodies, resolutions of the different courts, and statistical data of the criminal, civil and labour courts.
It mainly features data on State tax collection by region, including fiscal indicators, income tax (IRPF) and property register statistics.
It focuses on data related to type of goods and trade between countries. Data detailed by country, month, year, delivery and product type of the European Union countries.
Data grouped by themes or publications such as economic indicators, investment funds, historical data related to the finance sector, balance sheets, survey of household finances, bank lending and statistics about the foreign sector.
It also provides information on calls, training, publications and studies. It includes research on specific themes that are relevant at a given moment.
It also includes data from other administrations, both regional and municipal.
Database of state gazettes where it is possible to consult parliamentary journals by publication date or by gazette number from 1 January 1960.
Website providing summaries, critical analysis and reflection on content published in the Official Gazette of the Government of Spain (Boletín Oficial del Estado, BOE).
A selection of statistical data on the cultural sector in Spain. It includes statistics on topics such as museums, cinemas, the music industry and books.
Statistics complied by the Spanish Government on its country's cultural customs and practices.
A selection of statistical data on the cultural sector. It includes areas such as performing arts, music, film, television and radio.
A selection of statistical data on the cultural sector in Spain. It includes statistics on topics such as museums, cinemas, the music industry and books.
A selection of statistical data on the cultural sector in the Valencian Community. It includes statistics on topics such as museums, cinemas, the music industry and books.
Article on culture's economic impact and how to quantify it.
Article on funding for the cultural sector and the introduction of a cultural funding model.
The European Union
It refers to any field: economic globalization, foreign policy, environment, industrial production, living conditions, agriculture, transport and demography, among many other aspects. It is an essential source when seeking references to a subject.
It provides macroeconomic and financial statistics, the main eurozone indicators, monetary conditions indexes, evolution of prices and competitiveness.
Important data includes: sustainable development, injury, demography, food and living conditions.
A selection of statistical data on the cultural sector in Europe, covering both social and economic aspects. It includes statistics on topics such as museums, cinemas, the music industry and books.
LATAM
Employment, trade, training, salaries and education are some of the sectors for which information is provided.
Global data
The United Nations
It provides information on asylum requests accepted, denied, underway and divided by country of origin and request. Also includes detailed statistical information about places in a state of emergency.
UN Comtrade is a repository of official international trade statistics and relevant analytical tables. All data accessible through its own API.
It consists of a set of 52 quantitative indicators and 11 qualitative variables on relevant themes related to gender equality and female empowerment.
The data forms part of the annual report “Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals”.
On the website we may find some data groups a little out-of-date given the situation and resources in each country. This can create some difficulty when searching for documents.
Food trade, production, malnutrition, evolution of prices and famine are some of the wide range of data available.
Includes maps, and data divided by sex, age and socioeconomic conditions. Also allows a comparative analysis between countries.
It goes back to June 2009, can be downloaded as files and geographic images of the different countries and regions. This data is published every four months.
International organizations
The data catalogue is a list of datasets available from the World Bank, which includes databases, preformatted tables, reports and other resources.
It provides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military and transnational issues for 267 world entities.
The objective is to provide an overview and show the long-term changes. It provides both data visualizations and reusable datasets.
The objective of HDX is to make humanitarian data easy to find and use for analysis. The dataset has been accessed by users in more than 200 countries and territories.
It includes data on IMF lending and its fiscal situation, among much more macroeconomic data.
Data sources by fields
1,000,000 statistics focusing on industries, markets, consumers and insights downloadable in all popular formats, including PowerPoint, Excel and PDF. 18,000 public and scientific sources. 80,000 topics covering Europe, the United States and China.
They are classified by towns and countries, and we can locate them on an interactive map and see their timeline.
Transport
It provides information in real and historical time about thousands of planes all over the world.
It is constantly updated and very comprehensive, with an Excel sheet for every year since 1919.
Information can be broken down by vessels, ports and detailed historical data.
Defence and military
You can obtain information according to the region of interest, in diverse publications and several databases.
For each one, the information is divided into location, number of victims, organization responsible and date, among other details.
The links take us to websites of different regions of the world, which provide information about the conflicts taking place, as well as recovery strategies, number of casualties, refugees, and so on.
Economics and development
It can be downloaded in reusable format and uses a highly rigorous data collection methodology.
These are documents the public needs to make more informed decisions and that seek to help civic watchdogs, the media or social justice NGOs to substantiate their reportage. It also includes documents that have been suppressed or censored elsewhere. It is a platform managed by Code For Africa.
Open-source database that allows information to be filtered by country and extracted in the format desired.
It includes trade agreements and trading volume segmented by countries and product type.
It includes economic and social data and financial indicators related to the work of the Asian Development Bank.
It provides economic and social data and financial indicators.
Database containing financial information on Spanish companies. It offers historical information on the accounts of each company since 1990 and enables searches by company or group of companies.
You must select UOC as institution as shown in the following video to access SABI.
SABI has a maximum of 50.000 weekly exports. Use two or three filters before you export data.
Geospatial
It is a tool that allows users to access any number of datasets, create analyses of data, monitor present climate conditions and create visual representations.
Historical database in formats that allow visualization with cartographic processing tools.
They also provide geolocated open data from the global telecommunications network and the industry in general.
Culture and media
It also allows you to search a specific word and see the number of searches in the search engine.
Open library of thousands of books, movies, free software, music and websites.
Updated online media dataset. It features articles published by regions or user comments in different online media.
This initiative was set up in 2010 and it promotes innovation and the search for solutions based on data analysis.
A selection of statistical data on the cultural sector in Spain. It includes statistics on topics such as museums, cinemas, the music industry and books.
Statistics complied by the Spanish Government on its country's cultural customs and practices.
A selection of statistical data on the cultural sector in Europe, covering both social and economic aspects. It includes statistics on topics such as museums, cinemas, the music industry and books.
A selection of statistical data on the cultural sector. It includes areas such as performing arts, music, film, television and radio.
A selection of statistical data on the cultural sector in Spain. It includes statistics on topics such as museums, cinemas, the music industry and books.
A selection of statistical data on the cultural sector in Catalonia. It includes statistics on topics such as museums, cinemas, the music industry and books.
A selection of statistical data on the cultural sector in the Valencian Community. It includes statistics on topics such as museums, cinemas, the music industry and books.
Article on culture's economic impact and how to quantify it.
Article on funding for the cultural sector and the introduction of a cultural funding model.
GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums)
The Red de Bibliotecas Universitarias Españolas (REBIUN) includes all Spanish university and scientific libraries since 1988.
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)
They are cited in peer-reviewed academic publications and you can find the description, year of creation, creator, etc, as well as classification into image, text, sound, action and physical data, among others.
This initiative was set up in 2010 and it promotes innovation and the search for solutions based on data analysis.
Over 400 datasets usable through filters and categorized.
It features a large number of databases, all active, which we can filter by more than one category and organize according to downloads, upload date…
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