What do Orange County residents think about the state of the local economy? And how have their opinions changed over the last two decades? More than twenty years of raw data from the Orange County Annual Survey is accessible via the UCI Libraries Web site to help explore these and many other questions about how the county is coping with problems related to its rapid growth and changing demographics.

Key findings from the 2003 Statewide Survey

Former Professor of Urban and Regional Planning Mark Baldassare has monitored the county’s pulse annually since 1982 with his detailed survey of public opinion. Since leaving UCI for the Public Policy Institute of California in 2001, he has continued to conduct the survey under a memorandum of understanding with the UCI School of Social Ecology. Under that agreement, the raw data and associated documentation are freely available via the Libraries’ Orange County Annual Survey digital archive ­(http://ocsurveys.lib.uci.edu) that is mounted by our Social Science Data Archives. “The Orange County Surveys: A Digital Archive allows users to access and analyze data for scholarly research and instructional purposes, as well as for improved general understanding of social science research and its implications,” said Ron Huff, Dean of the UCI School of Social Ecology.

“These longitudinal surveys track the opinions of Orange County residents on a wide array of issues, and these valuable data are an important resource for tracking public opinion and looking at trends over more than two decades.” Each annual survey comprises interview responses from over 1,000 adult county residents on a wide range of county, state and national issues. Local issues include satisfaction with quality of life, finances, local government, the economy, local public services, and other societal matters. At the State level, respondents are asked how they view California’s government on issues of current interest, such as how best to resolve the current budget crisis. The survey also addresses national questions such as the overall performance of the current U.S. President and which political party respondents trust on matters such as health care, the economy, and national security. The Orange County Annual Survey digital archive is an example of how the UCI Libraries are using technology to disseminate information and facilitate its use for research and public use. Also available are the reports and press releases of each Annual Survey. For more information, contact Daniel Tsang, the Social Sciences Data Librarian, at dtsang@uci.edu.