Data Corner

Vince Gray

 

Improvements to IDLS

The order in which files are displayed in IDLS has been changed. Previously, the oldest file appeared at the top of the list, and the most recent at the bottom. More recent files (by survey date) will now display closer to the top of the list than older files.

The Conférence des recteurs et des principaux des universités du Québec (CREPUQ) provides online data to twelve Quebec universities and colleges through a service called Sherlock. SSNDS provides data to Western and to twenty-four other Canadian universities and colleges through the Internet Data Library System (IDLS). SSNDS is engaged in discussions with CREPUQ to improve access to data for both subscribers to IDLS and to CREPUQ member institutions. An official announcement about this exciting project should should be expected by December.

Data Liberation Initiative

Labour Force Survey of Canada

The entire run of the Labour Force Survey of Canada has been re-released by Statistics Canada, weighted according to 2001 values. These revised files are being loaded into IDLS—at Statistics Canada's request, the previous versions will be removed from IDLS. The entire run of Labour Force Survey files (from 1976 onwards) is now loaded into IDLS.

Citation Guide

A new Statistics Canada Guide, How to Cite Statistics Canada Products, is now available online at the Statistics Canada web site or may be found through IDLS. It includes instructions on how to cite print CD, and web-based publications, including microdata files, CANSIM tables, PDF files, etc. It includes instructions for citing non-Statistics Canada documents.

Election Surveys

Dataset for the 2003 Ontario Election Survey, the 2003 Saskatchewan Election Study, and the 2004 Canada Election Study have been received and will be processed for IDLS. The Canada Election Study team (out of University of Montreal)  is still working on the data file for the 2006 federal election—it too will be loaded into IDLS once available. If users wish to make use of these election studies prior to their being loaded into IDLS, please contact the Data Resources Library.

Maps and Geospatially-linked Data

Contact either the Map Library or the Data Resources Library if you need digital maps: the two libraries work in collaboration to provide access to these services.

We have received a number of files recently in response to requests from Western users. These include revised Digital Elevation Models for Ontario UTM Zone 18; watershed boundaries (at the secondary, tertiary and quaternary levels); UTM Zone 17 Water Virtual Flow maps, and soil maps. A link in IDLS has been created to a new Downloadable Maps service provided by the Chinese State Bureau of Survey and Mapping.

A massive (250+ GB) set of digital maps has been acquired: the Global Data Bundles compiled by Land Info. This data collection includes:

  • Set of 506 US military 1:500,000 scale TPCs (Tactical Pilotage Charts—scanned topographic/aeronautical maps), GeoTiff file format, Geo WGS84
  • 4 SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) 3 arc second (aprox. 90m) DEM (Digital Elevation Model), covers the World from Latitude 57 South - 61 North, .bil file format, Geo WGS84 (also includes hydrology vectors used for editing of the DEM data)
  • SRTM 30 arc second (aprox. 1km) global DEM made from SRTM and GTOPO30
  • Landsat 7 ETM 15m 7-4-2 GeoCover 2000 (1999 - 2003) worldwide satellite imagery, MrSID wavelett compressed file format, UTM WGS84
  • Landsat 4/5 TM 30m 7-4-2 GeoCover 1990 (1988 - 1992) near-worldwide worldwide satellite imagery, MrSID wavelett compressed file format, UTM WGS84
  • VMAP0 worldwide 1:1,000,000 scale vector data (near-worldwide coverage, varies by layer), ESRI .shp and MapInfo .TAB file formats, Geo WGS84
  • World Vector Shoreline Plus 1:250,000 scale vector data of the World's coastlines and international borders boundaries, ESRI .shp file format, Geo WGS84

All datasets include .shp indexes except VMAP0 and WVS+, which are not tiled, and SRTM30 which is organized by large (lat/long) blocks. The Data Resources Library will be happy to provide you with access to these files, which are not currently available through IDLS.