Sources of secondary data Secondary data can be acquired for research purposes from archives, libraries, museums, repositories and databases. Some examples, accessible online, are listed below to give you a flavour of the wealth of data available to researchers: The AHDS History's Collection "brings together over 600 separate data collections transcribed, scanned or compiled from historical sources. The studies cover a wide range of historical topics, from the seventh century to the twentieth century." Subject areas offered include Archeology, History, Literature, Language and Linguisitics, Visual and Performing Arts.

The British Library Sound Archive has six main subject areas, including oral history and wildlife sound. In addition to its own resources the website has a useful page of links to worldwide sites.

The UK's National Archives contains "900 years of history with records ranging from parchment and paper scrolls, through to digital files and archived websites."

The National Statistics website is a treasure trove of quantitative data in the following categories: 

• GDP
• Retail Sales
• Public Sector
• Inflation
• Population
• Employment

The Virtual Library for Theatre and Drama offers pointers to resources in more than 50 countries around the world.

The National River Flow Archive with records of over 50,000 individual years of daily and monthly river flow data, deriving from over 1300 gauging stations.

The Thomas H. Manning Polar Archives hosted by the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge has "one of the largest collections of manuscript and other unpublished material relating to the Arctic and Antarctic regions, and to many persons who have worked there".

The Victoria and Albert Museum maintains the following searchable collections:

• Architecture
• Asia
• British Galleries
• Ceramics
• Childhood
• Contemporary
• Fashion, Jewellery & Accessories
• Furniture
• Glass
• History, Periods & Styles
• Metalwork
• Paintings & Drawings
• Photography
• Prints & Books
• Sculpture
• Textiles

The UK Data Archive at the University of Essex is a key resource for UK social scientists and hosts major data collections and studies such as the British Household Panel Survey and Millennium Cohort Study in addition to acting as the repository for new datasets generated by all ESRC-funded research projects. Reflecting the major initiatives and funding streams which generate major social science datasets, the archive offers many different services: for example, it is a partner in the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) and leads on the ESDS Qualidata initiative, hosts the History Data Service and Rural Economy and Land Use Programme Data Support Service and ESRC Census Programme. The archive's holdings span quantitative, qualitative, multimedia andnon-digital collections. Many of the 5,000 computer-readable datasets are directly downloadable, while others can be requested for delivery on CD. The data catalogue is searchable online at http://www.data-archive.ac.uk.

The ESRC Census Programme provides data and support services to allow users in UK Higher and Further Education institutions to access the 1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001 UK censuses. The service includes both online data collections and expert user support services. An online registration service ensures easy access for academic users to a full range of census data products including area statistics, geographical boundaries, interaction data and samples of anonymised records from censuses 1971-2001. The ONS Longitudinal Study and new Scottish Longitudinal Study are also part of the programme, but covered by different access arrangements. The Programme provides an integrated Census Portal service at http://census.ac.uk including extensive online resources and guides for census users.

Ordnance Survey, Britain's national mapping agency, produces a comprehensive collection of digital mapping products suitable for use in mapping and geographical information systems (GIS) software. Academic access is provided to subscribing universities through the Digimap service hosted by the University of Edinburgh at http://www.edina.ac.uk/digimap/. The collection allows simple on-screen production of maps for multiple scales and purposes without the need for specialist expertise, including historical mapping. There are tools for the selection and download of most of the major Ordnance Survey digital mapping datasets including the comprehensive Mastermap product, for which specialist application software is required on the user's own computer. The Digimap collection covers England, Wales and Scotland, but not Northern Ireland.

The University of Southampton offers the ePrints repository, Archive and Manuscript Collections in the Hartley Library, and the Oceanis system for searching the National Oceanographic Library.

Activity 8: Sources of secondary data that you may use.

Later in the paper on Mixed Methods Research, Brannen says

"In many studies, it is common to draw upon, or refer to data analyses that are not part of the primary data collected. In national studies it has become commonplace also to carry out secondary analysis of large scale data as the archiving of data has become more common. Such contextualisation is relevant at all phases of the research process, for example shaping a line of enquiry during the analysis of data, as well as at the later stage when the conclusions are drawn and the overall analysis interpreted." (p23)

In this activity you are asks to consider and investigate possible sources of secondary data related to your own topic of study. Now open your log book and complete Activity 8.