Judith Rowe
Abstract
During the last twenty years, social scientists involved with the establishment and administration of data archives have been making overtures to traditional libraries. But until recently, there has been almost no response. In 1957, York Lucci and Stein Rokkan proposed a "library center of survey research data." [1] In 1965, Ithiel de Sola-Pool argued cogently that "the storing of basic data... [is] a library function." [2] In 1967, Ralph Bisco addressed the question, "Why should university libraries undertake data services...?" [3] That same year, a report prepared for the National Academy of Sciences examined some of the factors which seemed to vitiate against a merger of data archives and traditional libraries. [4] In 1969, at the last conference of the Council of Social Science Data Archives, David Elesh, then director of Wisconsin's Social Science Data and Program Library Service, and Erwin Welsch, Wisconsin's Social Studies Librarian, addressed an audience composed of data archivists and librarians on "The Library of the Future." [5] In 1970, Jack Dennis, present director of the Data and Program Library Service, addressed a conference of librarians where he spoke of the need for "closer integration of the local archive into existing local university information services--particularly those provided by the traditional university library." [6] By 1971, when David Nasitir summarized the history of the data archive movement's attempts to establish a rapprochement with the traditional library [7], there was little positive activity to report. However, in commenting on a paper delivered by Constance Citro in 1968, which was concerned with the desire on the part of the Bureau of the Census to allow libraries to manage the summary tapes of the 1970 census [8], his words proved prophetic. Nasitir said, "This is the one area in which the data archive movement is converging with academic libraries....If the census tapes form the thin end of the wedge, a large number of sample survey data tapes now held in archives may follow." [9] The wedge is now in the door and the remainder of this discussion will look briefly at the evidence of its presence.
- Lucci, York, and Stein Rokkan. A library center of survey research data. New York: School of Library Service, Columbia University, June 1957. Available on microfilm through interlibrary loan from Columbia.Google Scholar
- Pool, Ithiel de Sola. "Data archives and libraries." In Overhage, Carl F. J., and R. Joyce Harman, (eds.) INTREX: Report on a planning conference on information transfer experiments. Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1965, pp. 176--80.Google Scholar
- Bisco, Ralph L. "The research library and data archives for social research." Speech prepared for the dedication of the Graduate Research Library, University of Florida, 1967. (MIMEO)Google Scholar
- National Research Council/Committee on Information in the Behavioral Sciences. Communication systems and resources in the behavioral sciences. Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1967. ch. 3. (Publication 1575).Google Scholar
- Workshop on the Management of a Data and Program Library, University of Wisconsin, 1969. Proceedings. Margaret O'Neill Adams, David Elesh, and Alice Robbin, eds. Madison, 1970.Google Scholar
- Dennis, Jack. "The Relation of Social Science Data Archives to Libraries and Wider Information Networks." In Conference on Interlibrary Communications and Information Networks. Proceedings. Joseph Becker, ed. Chicago: American Library Association, 1971.Google Scholar
- Nasitir, David. Data Archives for the Social Sciences: Purposes, Operations and Problems, Paris: UNESCO Reports and Papers in the Social Sciences, No. 26, 1973. The brief summary above is based on this publication.Google Scholar
- Citro, Constance. "Data delivery on computer tape to libraries." In Conference of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association. Papers from the 6th Annual Conference. Sept. 5-7, 1968. Urban and regional information systems: federal activities and specialized systems. ed. by John E. Rickert. p 50. For a more current view of the Bureau's position see Cynthia M. Tauber's "The Role of the Library in Organizing Social Science Machine Readable Data," a presentation at the annual meetina of the Association of Population Libraries and Information Centers. Seattle, April 1975.Google Scholar
- Nasitir, op. cit. p. 14.Google Scholar
- Miller, Bruce Allan, Characteristics of Access to Machine-Readable Statistical Data Files, a dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate Library School in candidacy for the degree of Master of Arts. Chicago, Illinois, March, 1974.Google Scholar
- White, Howard D., Social Science Data Sets: A Study for Librarians. School of Librarianship, University of California, Berkeley, California. 1974. Contains an extremely thorough bibliography as well as an excellent discussion of the pros and cons of library involvement with machine readable data files.Google Scholar
- Jones, Ray, "Impacts on Reference: The Census and the Computer" RO vol. 12 No. 13, Spring 1973, pp. 247--250.Google Scholar
- Rowe, Judith S. and Mary Ryan. "Library Service from Numerical Data Bases: the 1970 Census as a Paradigm," College and Research Libraries, 35:1, January 1974, pp. 7--15.Google ScholarCross Ref
- The proceedings of a program entitled "Government Publications in Machine Readable Form: A New Tool for the Reference Librarian" are available on two cassettes (L412, 1-2) from Development Digest, 3347 Motor Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90049, and will be published in the spring 1975 issue of Research Quarterly,Google Scholar
- These recommendations for these rules are being prepared for the new edition of Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules. The current edition (American Library Association, Chicago, 1967) makes no provision for the cataloguing of machine readable data files although it does provide for other non-print media such as phonorecords, motion pictures and filmstrips and pictures.Google Scholar
- The catalogue entry assumes a multi-level system of data file documentation. Howard White (op. cit.) and others have clearly indicated that final decisions on the usefulness of data files reguire documentation on the codebook level. The catalogue card, therefore, serves only to alert a user to the existence of a file and its availability at his institution. Normally it would indicate where further documentation could be found.Google Scholar
- For a fuller discussion of multi-level documentation see: Byrum, John P. and Judith S. Rowe, "An Integrated User-Oriented System for the Documentation and Control of Machine-Readable Data Files," Library Resources and Technical Services, 16:3 1972, pp. 338--346. An abbreviated version of this paper by Judith S. Rowe appeared as "Libraries and Machine-Readable Data" SIGSOC Bulletin 5:1 Spring 1973, pp. 14--18.Google Scholar
- An excellent summary of this session was prepared by the chairman Deborah Barrett and submitted to NBER in mimeographed form. Its title is "Workshop 3: Bibliographic Aspects of Documentation."Google Scholar
- Weihs, Jean Riddle, Shirley Lewis and Janey Macdonald. Nonbook Materials: the Organization of Integrated Collections. 1st ed. Ottawa: Canadian Library Association. 1973.Google Scholar
- Another system for cataloguing program files, but one less appropriate for integrated collections is described in Pearson, Karl M., Jr. "A System for Cataloguing Computer Software," Special Libraries 64:12 December 1973 pp. 545--554. Pearson is also the author of an earlier article "Providing for Machine-Readable Statistical Data Sets in University Research Libraries," System Development Corporation, May 17, 1968. SP-31555/000/00.Google Scholar
- Directory of Data Bases in the Social and Behavioral Sciences, New York: Science Associates/International, Inc. 1974. 300 pp. $35.00.Google Scholar
- Directory of Computerized Data Files and Related Software Available from Federal Agencies, edited by Robert Jaxel. U. S. Department of Commerce, National Technical Information Service, 5285 Port Royal Road, Springfield, Virginia 22151, March 1974. 107 pp. + indexes. $60.00 NTIS-SR 74-01.Google Scholar
- White, op. cit. passim.Google Scholar
- Ferguson, Douglas. The Library, the Researcher, and Computerized Information at Stanford University: a Report to the Director of Libraries. Stanford University, October 1971. ED 060 913. See also Stanford University Data File Directory July 1973 (and updates) available from Douglas Ferguson, Data Information Services, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California 94305.Google Scholar
- Billie Salter, Yale's Social Science Librarian, was one of the participants in the panel cited in footnote 11 above. A printed description of Yale's data services will be published in the EDUCOM newsletter.Google Scholar
- Jones, op. cit. describes Florida's Census Access Program.Google Scholar
- Rowe and Ryan, op. cit. compares library servicing of census data at Princeton and UCLA and addresses. Some of the general issues involved in library servicing of machine readable data files.Google Scholar
- Ibid. p. 15.Google Scholar
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