The Data Catalogue is an integrated catalogue which contains information on over 5,000 datasets covering an extensive range of key economic and social data, both quantitative and qualitative, spanning many disciplines and themes. The data include those supported by the specialist services:

• ESDS Government large-scale government surveys, such as the Labour Force Survey and the General Household Survey
• ESDS International multi-nation aggregate databanks, such as World Bank data, and survey data, such as the Eurobarometers and World Values Surveys
• ESDS Longitudinal major UK surveys following individuals over time, such as the British Household Panel Survey
• ESDS Qualidata a range of multimedia qualitative data sources

The catalogue also contains:

• historical data from the History Data Service
• UK census data available via Census.ac.uk
• environmental data available from the Relu knowledge portal
• confidential and potentially disclosive data available from the Secure Data Service

Access to the data is via registration using federated access management (shibboleth) user authentication. Note that access to ESDS International macrodata, Relu and census data is limited to users at UK higher or further education institutions. Access to SDS data is subject to further requirements (see The application process). More information on registering and access can be found at How to access data.

Information is also included on relevant data that are held elsewhere. These 'virtual' records include those qualitative datasets held in other repositories and important cross-national datasets held at archives in other countries. Information on how to access these data is provided and in many cases a link to the associated documentation is also given.

Each dataset within the collection is described in a catalogue record containing:

• bibliographic details (data creator, data collector, sponsor, etc.)
• methodological information (sampling, weighting, data collection methods, etc.)
• abstract
• geographical coverage
• temporal coverage

Links to associated metadata include:

• references to publications by the data creators as well as publications based on secondary use of the data
• subject keywords
• variables (for many datasets)
• online documentation (for the majority of the datasets)
• lists of related datasets

Access to the catalogue is freely available and all users can:

• view various levels of the metadata (bibliographic record, abstract, documentation, user guide, variable list, data dictionary)
• download or browse the documentation
• access frequency counts for selected data (via Explore Online/Nesstar links)

Registered users can:

• browse, analyse or download the data for a growing number of the most popular data series
• order the data and documentation in a variety of software formats and media

The catalogue may be searched in a variety of ways:

• Data Catalogue search allows a free-text or a focused search on specific fields - multiple search terms can be combined to provide a more precise search
• Variables search allows all variable labels and value labels to be searched for in the most popular datasets in the Data Catalogue
• Browse the Data Catalogue by subject
• latest additions and new editions viewed via the New data releases listings

Quick links are provided to the most popular datasets, including those supported by the specialist ESDS Services (ESDS Government, ESDS International, ESDS Longitudinal and ESDS Qualidata) from the Major studies page.

Help on searching the catalogue is available and new users are advised to consult this in order to perform the most effective searches.