Datasets are increasingly a key digital resource used in a wide range of fields. The Library of Congress selects, preserves, and provides enduring access to datasets with the goal of cultivating a broad collection that encompasses all the areas covered by Library of Congress Collection Policy Statements. For more information on priorities for collecting datasets, see the Supplementary Guidelines for Datasets. Additional datasets acquired by the Library for the permanent collection will be made available here on a regular basis.

This page provides general information related to datasets in the Library of Congress' collection and also provides access to items that are available online. The Library strives to make acquired datasets as broadly accessible to users as possible; however, there are instances in which an acquired dataset will be unavailable to users or will require a user to visit the Library for access. For more information, please consult the Rights and Access section.

Datasets can be downloaded directly from their individual item pages. Datasets will be compressed into a zip file that will include relevant supplementary material (e.g., codebooks, data dictionaries, READMEs, code).

The Selected Datasets are managed by the Digital Content Management section and are a component of the Library's efforts to increase its capacity and capability for acquiring and providing access to digital content.