Often known by its acronym CRSP, it is a research center at the Booth School of Business (founded in 1898) of the University of Chicago. CRSP is a non-profit center which also functions as a vendor of historical data.
The Business School subscribes to the following CRSP databases:
CRSP databases are currently accessed via the SAS programming interface.
http://www.crsp.com/crsp/faq.htm