By Nicole Daly 

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) has done it again! With the guiding force of University of Michigan professor Libby Hemphill and in collaboration with Meta, Facebook’s parent company, they have expanded their many data collections to include SOMAR, a social media archive for researchers to find and investigate data dealing with social media. 

As of May 1, 2023, the repository only holds 5 datasets, but it is growing and will be updated frequently to add more resources. For more information on using or adding to this resource go to the Social Media Archive (SOMAR) @ ICPSR.

Similar to its hosting site, ICPSR, SOMAR allows researchers to browse for datasets by collection or keyword. Users are able to narrow their search results by social media platform, allowing them to browse for data on or about specific sites, such as Facebook. Once a user has found a study and dataset of interest they will be able open the item record to read about the study details to determine if they would like to login and download the dataset.

A reminder, Villanova is a member institution of ICPSR, allowing faculty, staff, and students access to a vast collection of datasets in the social science realm. To begin using ICPSR, a free account must be created while on campus to gain access to the full collection. Once you have created your account you will be able to use this resource, and its linked collections like SOMAR, off campus. 

For any questions, contact Social Science Librarian Nicole Daly.

This resource is available from the Falvey Library homepage, Databases A-Z list.

Nicole Daly is Communication Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.