The Library provides access to a number of specialized, online data resources, including:

  • Planet Labs
    daily satellite images of the entire earth's surface
  • Esri Living Atlas
    quality geospatial data available via ArcGIS Online
  • BrandWatch
    social media data harvesting and analysis, including access to historic Twitter data

Data Disks

Data in this section are accessible in the DREAM Lab. We have a large selection of data on hard drives and on optical media (CDs and DVDs).

If you are unable to visit the Library, please email us a dreamlab@library.ucsb.edu to discuss access to our DREAM Lab-only resources. 

Please come to the DREAM Lab to access our extensive collections of data.  See this research guide on how to find data in the Library catalog and access it in the DREAM Lab. We have two network drives on our workstations:

Each of these drives contain several subdirectories with a separate category of material organized according to their own scheme. The MIL directories contain more than 600 titles of scanned maps and geospatial data.  Spatial data is data that is easily viewable using a standard desktop Geographic Information System, such as ArcGIS or QGIS. The Library has made some of our geospatial data available online via our DREAM Lab Open Data Hub

The data in the Public Open Data folder is in the Public Domain and can be used for any purpose.  UCSB-Only Data is licensed or otherwise restricted data--please check the metadata carefully and speak to a DREAM Lab staff member if you have questions regarding the use of this data.  

Not all of these folders are described in the Library Search.  

Titles of particular interest are:

  • GALE phase 2 Arabic broadcast conversation parallel text
    \\MIL\DataCollection_restricted\LCC\pj_6074_g34_2012
    Machine learning training data created by DARPA
  • USC-SFI MALACH interviews and transcripts English
    \\MIL\DataCollection_restricted\LCC\d_810_j4_u84_2012
    375 hours of interviews and transcripts with Holocaust Survivors focused on speech recognition and information retrieval
    We have other titles from the Linguistic Data Consortium.
  • Esri Data for Education Programs
    \\MIL\DataCollection_restricted\MIL\3701_e2_2017_e8
    Includes a wide variety of global and United Stated demographic data
  • US demographic and consumer behavior data from a variety of sources including the US Census, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and others, including projections out to 2019.
  • Topographic Raster Data
    DRG formatted geoTIFFs of a wide variety of countries.
  • 3851s A49 var U5 FrameFinder
    A dataset and GIS that describes the spatial extent of MIL's massive aerial photography collection.  The dataset contains centerpoints for more than 400,000 aerial photographs and information on their scale and digitization status.
  • UCSB Campus Data.  Annual compilations of campus vector and raster data from a variety of official sources.
    • 3853.S3:282:2U5 2014 U51 Interactive Campus Map Data 
    • 3853.S3:282:2U5 2014 U5 Data from UCSB Facilities Management
    • 3853:S3:282:2U5 G45 2010 U5 Data from UCSB Long Range Development Plan 2010
  • 5551 S1 2010 .E8 Georeferenced historical vector data of Europe
    One map for each century from year 1 to year 1400.  These maps depict the detailed political situation of Europe at the last year of each century.
  • 6737.M3s VAR .L3 Malaysia (Peninsular) national topographic city plans
    Scanned and georeferenced topographic maps of peninsular Malaysia.

CD-ROM's and DVD's

A large selection of geospatial CD-ROMs and DVDs are accessible via UC Library Search
See our GI Science Research Guide for tips on searching the catalog for spatial data.

Other types of data on disk can be found in the media collection and requested from the Main Services Desk

Please contact DREAM Lab staff if you need help finding or using data.

More information about geospatial data both on and off campus:

  • by geography (campus, city, county, state, etc.)
  • by type (elevation models, georeferenced maps, demographic, etc.)

History of the Data Collections

The UCSB Library has a long history of collecting, providing access to, and developing novel search and discovery tools to spatial data. From 1969 until 2017, the Library's Map & Imagery Laboratory built collections and systems.

In 2014 we assessed more than 20 years worth of collections for inclusion in the new Alexandria Digital Research Library.  Today we are actively working on geodata.library.ucsb.edu, a local instance of BlackLight, while continuing to add to the local file collections described above.