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2. Data Search and Discovery

2023-03-23

Searching for data within Dataverse is quite easy using the dataverse_search() function. The simplest searches simply consist of a query string:

library("dataverse")
Sys.setenv("DATAVERSE_SERVER" = "dataverse.harvard.edu")
dataverse_search("Gary King")[c("name")]
## 10 of 3676 results retrieved
##                                                                                                                   name
## 1                                                                            004_informal_food_retail_Nigeria_2018.tab
## 2                                                                                00698McArthur-King-BoxCoverSheets.pdf
## 3                                                                               00698McArthur-King-MemoOfAgreement.pdf
## 4                                                                              00698McArthur-King-StudyDescription.pdf
## 5  01 ReadMe Unlocking history through automated virtual unfolding of sealed documents imaged by X-ray microtomography
## 6                                           01_ReadMe_The_Spiral_Locked_Letters_of_Elizabeth_I_and_Mary_Queen_of_Scots
## 7                                     03 Brienne Collection letterlocking data: Images folder 02/16, DB-0874_2–DB-0903
## 8                                    03 Brienne Collection letterlocking data: Images folder 04/16, DB-0988–DB-1109_03
## 9                                 03 Brienne Collection letterlocking data: Images folder 06/16, DB-1241_02–DB-1339_06
## 10                                03 Brienne Collection letterlocking data: Images folder 08/16, DB-1455_02–DB-1564_01

The results are paginated, so users can rely upon the per_page and start argument to requested subsequent pages of results. We’ll start at 6 and to show that we retrieve the last five results from the previous query plus 15 more (due to per_page = 20):

dataverse_search("Gary King", start = 6, per_page = 20)[c("name")]
## 20 of 3676 results retrieved
##                                                                                                                           name
## 1                                             03 Brienne Collection letterlocking data: Images folder 02/16, DB-0874_2–DB-0903
## 2                                            03 Brienne Collection letterlocking data: Images folder 04/16, DB-0988–DB-1109_03
## 3                                         03 Brienne Collection letterlocking data: Images folder 06/16, DB-1241_02–DB-1339_06
## 4                                         03 Brienne Collection letterlocking data: Images folder 08/16, DB-1455_02–DB-1564_01
## 5                                            03 Brienne Collection letterlocking data: Images folder 12/16, DB-1868–DB-1963_03
## 6                                            03 Brienne Collection letterlocking data: Images folder 14/16, DB-2064_01–2155_03
## 7                                                                                                       03 Spiral-lock figures
## 8                                                                                                 03_scaledBayesianFactors.tab
## 9                                                                                07 Letterlocking Categories and Formats Chart
## 10                                                                                                            077_mod1_s2m.tab
## 11 10 Foldable: Launch Little Book of Locks (UH6089), with Categories and Formats Chart. Letterlocking Instructional Resources
## 12                                                                                      10 Million International Dyadic Events
## 13                                                                     12070002_Wolfville T and Kings Subd D SC 2016-92640.pdf
## 14                                                                                     12070005-Kings Subd C SC 2016-92640.pdf
## 15                                                                           1479 data points of covid19 policy response times
## 16                                                             1998 Jewish Community Study of the Coachella Valley, California
## 17                                                                                               2002 State Legislative Survey
## 18                                                                          2007 White Sands Dune Field lidar topographic data
## 19                                                                          2008 White Sands Dune Field lidar topographic data
## 20                                                                                                         2012 STATA Data.tab

More complicated searches can specify metadata fields like title and restrict results to a specific type of Dataverse object (a “dataverse”, “dataset”, or “file”):

ei <- dataverse_search(author = "Gary King", title = "Ecological Inference", type = "dataset", per_page = 20)
## 20 of 1557 results retrieved
# fields returned
names(ei)
# names of datasets
ei$name
##  [1] "name"                    "type"                    "url"                     "global_id"              
##  [5] "description"             "published_at"            "publisher"               "citationHtml"           
##  [9] "identifier_of_dataverse" "name_of_dataverse"       "citation"                "storageIdentifier"      
## [13] "keywords"                "subjects"                "fileCount"               "versionId"              
## [17] "versionState"            "majorVersion"            "minorVersion"            "createdAt"              
## [21] "updatedAt"               "contacts"                "authors"                 "publications"           
##  [1] "01 ReadMe Unlocking history through automated virtual unfolding of sealed documents imaged by X-ray microtomography"        
##  [2] "01_ReadMe_The_Spiral_Locked_Letters_of_Elizabeth_I_and_Mary_Queen_of_Scots"                                                 
##  [3] "03 Brienne Collection letterlocking data: Images folder 02/16, DB-0874_2–DB-0903"                                           
##  [4] "03 Brienne Collection letterlocking data: Images folder 04/16, DB-0988–DB-1109_03"                                          
##  [5] "03 Brienne Collection letterlocking data: Images folder 06/16, DB-1241_02–DB-1339_06"                                       
##  [6] "03 Brienne Collection letterlocking data: Images folder 08/16, DB-1455_02–DB-1564_01"                                       
##  [7] "03 Brienne Collection letterlocking data: Images folder 12/16, DB-1868–DB-1963_03"                                          
##  [8] "03 Brienne Collection letterlocking data: Images folder 14/16, DB-2064_01–2155_03"                                          
##  [9] "03 Spiral-lock figures"                                                                                                     
## [10] "07 Letterlocking Categories and Formats Chart"                                                                              
## [11] "10 Foldable: Launch Little Book of Locks (UH6089), with Categories and Formats Chart. Letterlocking Instructional Resources"
## [12] "10 Million International Dyadic Events"                                                                                     
## [13] "1479 data points of covid19 policy response times"                                                                          
## [14] "2016 Census of Population: ADA and DA Maps for Kings County Nova Scotia"                                                    
## [15] "3D Dust map from Green et al. (2015)"                                                                                       
## [16] "3D dust map from Green et al. (2017)"                                                                                       
## [17] "3D dust map from Green et al. (2019)"                                                                                       
## [18] "A 1D Lyman-alpha Profile Camera for Plasma Edge Neutral Studies  on the DIII-D Tokamak"                                     
## [19] "A Comparative Analysis of Brazil's Foreign Policy Drivers Towards the USA: Comment on Amorim Neto (2011)"                   
## [20] "A Critique of Dyadic Design"

Once datasets and files are identified, it is easy to download and use them directly in R. See the “Data Download” vignette for details.

These binaries (installable software) and packages are in development.
They may not be fully stable and should be used with caution. We make no claims about them.