Emphasis is on survey data. Regional data and textural data for computer-aided content analysis are included as well. Special collections for national election studies have existed since 1953. Also available are consumer studies, leisure and tourism studies, communication and media research, and the German General Social Surveys, as well as national and international teaching setups. The oldest archived study was carried out in 1945.
All bibliographic references are available via an in-house retrieval system.
More than one hundred periodicals are held. Inventories for the period 1962-1990 have been published. The ZHSF is engaged in numerous research and service activities for historical social research and is a scientifically autonomous department within the Zentralarchiv. Each year, early in September, the ZHSF offers two weeks of seminars on quantitative methods in historical social research at the basic and advanced level. Contributions to Empirical Social Research, a series published by Campus Verlag, Frankfurt, containing research activities in the archive.