IPUMS now has an online IPUMS Document Collection for our ancillary census and survey materials collected by IPUMS International!

In 1999, with a social science infrastructure grant from the National Science Foundation, (NSF) IPUMS International had a simple yet audaciously ambitious goal: preserve the world’s microdata resources and democratize access to those sources. Twenty-five years later, the project goals continue to be: collecting and preserving census and survey data and documentation; harmonizing those data; and disseminating the harmonized data free of charge.

Through the course of this work, IPUMS-I amassed tens of thousands of ancillary materials in support of its data harmonization work. These materials came from United State Census Bureau (USCB), United Nations Statistical Division (UNSD), Latin American and Caribbean Demographic Center (CELADE), The East-West Center, Centre Population et Dévelopement (CEPED), and over one hundred national statistical agencies. Examples of this material include correspondence, maps, enumerator instructions, supervisor instructions, training materials, codebooks, publicity, reports, newspaper clippings, unpublished papers, census timetables, data processing materials, and technical manuals. The ancillary materials in the IPUMS collection attest to the varied technical, business, social, and economic aspects of conducting census and surveys across time and space.