New Teaching Rooms Opened

VAX Wind-down Schedule

Statistical Software Examples on the Web

Data Resources Library - Update

Announcements

Windows 98 Support

Web Publishing Services

Year 2000 and the SSC Network
 
 

Social Science Computing Laboratory
Faculty of Social Science
Room 1228, Social Science Centre
The University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario, Canada, N6A 5C2

E-mail: ssts@uwo.ca
Web: www.ssc.uwo.ca
Phone: 519 661-2152 
Managing Editor: Les Flodrowski

SSC Network Update

Data Resources Library – Update

Staff Developments in DRL
SSCL is very pleased to welcome Elizabeth Hill who joins the SSCL on October 1, 1998 as an Information Systems Analyst/Consultant. Elizabeth has a Master's Degree in Library and Information Science from UWO and has earned a variety of Microsoft specialist certificates with extensive work experience in networking, Microsoft products and consulting. Elizabeth will be working extensively on projects servicing the Data Resources Library.

Database Developments
The pending decommissioning of the VAX computers has led SSCL to replace our aging BASIS database management system, which has been the database engine behind the Departmental Research Bibliography System (DRBS). The software selected for this purpose is Inmagic/DB TextWorks. Inmagic is ideal for handling full-text and bibliographic databases and has been used for several years by the Population Studies Centre in Sociology. The Web Publisher option purchased with Inmagic permits databases to be made available for searching via the Internet. The Population Studies Catalogue, for example, is accessible at titan.ssc.uwo.ca/popstudies/catalogue/index.html.

Work has begun to convert all existing DRBS databases from BASIS to Inmagic. To date, the Serge Sauer Map Library and the Data Resources Library catalogues have been converted. They are available at the following URLs: titan.ssc.uwo.ca/mapref/pubsearch.htm and titan.ssc.uwo.ca/drl/catalogue/pubsearch.htm, respectively.

Online catalogues still to be converted include those from the Economics Reference Centre and Political Science Local Government Library. At least one faculty member is using Inmagic to manage a personal bibliography of research notes. Please contact DRL if you are interested in using this software.

Census Data On The Web
Statistics Canada now makes most data from the 1996 Census available to clients using the software package Beyond 20/20. DRL, in turn, provides these files through the Internet Data Library System (IDLS) via the URL www.ssc.uwo.ca/ssnds/drl.html.

It should be noted that DRL was the first library in Canada to make data accessible on the Web using Beyond 20/20. The systems developed here are now being used at other university data libraries in Canada. It remains to be seen if Statistics Canada will follow this initiative and provide data from the 2001 Census directly via the Web.

Data Liberation Initiative (DLI) 
DLI provides free access to most Statistics Canada data for teaching, research, or administrative uses within UWO, but not for commercial purposes.

A non-exhaustive list of data included in the DLI includes the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, General Social Surveys, National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, and 1996 Census. If Statistics Canada announces the release of a new public microdata file, it will probably be available through the DLI. As a basic rule, if you need data from Statistics Canada contact DRL, whether or not you are in Social Sciences. If the data is available through DLI, we will obtain it for you.
 
In addition to the 1996 Census, other census files are produced in Beyond 20/20 format. These include the MapInfo and ARCInfo maps, and most recent Postal Code Conversion Files. Contact DRL for these or other files.
 
As a final note concerning the 1996 Census, Statistics Canada has announced a first quarter 1999 release for the Public Use Microdata Samples of Individual and Families, and a second quarter 1999 release for the Public Use Microdata Sample of Households. A system notice will be posted as these files are processed and made available in IDLS.