Volume 1, No. 3, Art. 30 – December 2000
Qualitative Archives: Short Descriptions
The Murray Research Center: A Center for the Study of Lives. Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University
Team: Dr. Jacquelyn Boone James, Dr. Annemette Sorensen
1. Field of Research
Human development, women's lives, and the life course
2. Aims and Work of Archive
The Henry A. Murray Research Center is a multi disciplinary research center focusing on the study of lives over time. It is a national repository for social and behavioral science data on human development and social change. The primary criteria for evaluating data sets for inclusion in the archive are the usefulness of the data for secondary analysis, replication or longitudinal follow-up. Issues of confidentiality and access are addressed for each data set as the study is acquired and processed. The resources of the Murray center are available to researchers at all levels and from all disciplines and schools, free of charge. The Guide to the Data Resources is available online and in hard copy and provides and overview of the center's holdings.
3. Kinds of Material
The data archive includes not only computer-accessible quantitative data, but also qualitative materials such as case histories, open-ended interviews, responses to projective tests, and video taped and audio taped data. The center also allows new researchers to contact the subjects of existing data sets to obtain follow-up data.
Contact:
Dr. Jacquelyn Boone James, Dr. Annemette Sorensen
Murray Research Center
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
USA
Tel.: 1 617 495-8140
Fax: 1 617 496-3993
Revised 8/2008
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