Datasets on this page are copyrighted for use by current Baruch students, faculty, and staff for non-profit, educational, and research purposes. Commercial use and redistribution of the data is prohibited. These datasets cannot be distributed publicly over the Internet; current members of Baruch College should use their Baruch email address and contact the geospatial data librarian to access restricted datasets. Only current Baruch students, staff, or faculty may request access.
ReferenceUSA's historical data files contain records for each business in its US business database from 1997 to 2019, with many of the attributes that are available in their current database product (including XY longitude and latitude coordinates that allow the data to be plotted and mapped using GIS software). Current members of the Baruch community can request specific extracts of these files by year, geographic area, and business type or name.
There are two ways you can access this data:
WRDS Wharton Database
For data from 1997 to present, current Baruch students, faculty, and staff can access WRDS Wharton from the library's databases page. Create a one-day account using your Baruch email address. Under subscriptions click Infogroup, and select Historical Business (Academic Version). You'll be able to construct your own query to extract data of interest, and when the extract is ready you can download it from the website.
GIS Lab Archive
The library has purchased data from 1997 to 2019 that we store on a local network database server. You can request an extract using your Baruch email address; submit the following information to the geospatial librarian (alternatively you can request an appointment to discuss your project needs):
- Your full name
- Your department and concentration
- Year(s) of data that you're interested in (between 1997 and 2019)
- Geographic area (state and county or metro area or ZIP Codes)
- Type of business (please use 2 to 6 digit NAICS codes)
- Name of a specific business (if type doesn't apply)
- A general description of why you're requesting the data and what you'll use it for
Alternatives
This resource is for users who want to study historical change in individual business establishments in a given area over time. If you are looking for current data access ReferenceUSA via the library's databases page instead. If you are looking for historical or contemporary summaries of business establishments (i.e. sums or counts of businesses by type and geography) use the Census Bureau's County or ZIP Code Business Patterns data instead.