Bridget Winstanley The Data Archive University of Essex, UK
May 1997
Per Nielsen
The European Region and IASSIST as a whole are the poorer for the loss of
Per Nielsen. His untimely death on December 27 1996 has deeply saddened us
all.
Introduction
The news items recorded below show some of the activities in the European
region which involve IASSIST members. I know that there are very many more,
but the deadline has come and gone, so this must be posted! I am sure that
I shall have more to add when I present my verbal report at Odense in May.
The ILSES project
(Information supplied by Repke de Vries)
A group of Dutch, German, French and Irish institutes has been successful
in obtaining funding from the European Commission under the 4th Framework
for a project which will provide access to documentary information and
empirical data related to large-scale surveys such as the binannual
Eurobarometer surveys. ILSES is designed to serve both end-users and
content-providers of socio-economic information.
ILSES allows end-users to extend literature searches to access to empirical
data. This allows them to extend classic literature research with their own
original empirical analyses of relevant data. ILSES of course also offers
the other route: directing data-analysts searching for specific empirical
data to be used in secondary analysis to literature in which results and
outcomes of previous and similar analyses have been reported.
For content-providers ILSES offers tools and procedures for the
normalization, cataloguing and controlled distribution of (distributed)
holdings of the documentary and data resources mentioned above. Such
content-providers are the database administration staffs of libraries and
data archives. ILSES will enable them to drastically increase and improve
the utilization of their information resources while at the same time
reducing their support burden per information request or retrieval.
ILSES will be designed as an open system which can be applied to different
kinds of library and data holdings. In this project, however, a
pilot-application will be focused on socio-economic information as
collected by large scale surveys, and on the associated literature.
ILSES is based on integrated relational databases of meta-information
pertaining to both library and data-archive holdings, both of which are
typically distributed over many different institutions.
The NESSTAR Project (Networked European Social Science Tools and Resources)
The NESSTAR project is utilising recent advances in Internet technology to
meet the increasing demand for European data.
The project has spent 12 months as a "Preliminary Pilot Project," funded by
the European Union. This time was spent evaluating available technologies,
identifying user requirements and developing a functional specification, a
blue print for the final system.
The original partners, The Data Archive, Norwegian Social Science Data
Services and the Danish Data Archive have now been joined by the Irish
Central Statistics Office, The Norwegian Institute of Journalism, The
University of Aarhus in Denmark, Anàlisis Sociológicos Económicos y
Politicos and JD Systems, both of Madrid. These partners have submitted a
new proposal to the EU. If successful the partners will spend the next two
years building a web based system to provide online facilities to:
locate data sources and browse metadata
browse, analyse and visualise data and documentation
deliver data and documentation (including subsets) in a variety of formats
encourage feedback from, and communication between users
NESSTAR will lower technical barriers to data allowing users with few
computing and statistical skills to access these valuable sources of
information. It will also facilitate cross-national research.
Further information about the project can be found at the project's website,
http://dawww.essex.ac.uk/projects/nesstar. Any questions or comments about
the project should be directed to Simon Musgrave or Michelle Rogerson.
News from Ireland
Ken Hannigan has supplied the following information:
Because Ireland held the Presidency of the EU last year Ireland was able in
October to host a meeting of European experts on electronic records as part
of the programme of cultural events under the Presidency. It included a
half-day seminar for Irish archivists on the subject of electronic records
and the launch of "For the Record", the proceedings of the previous year's
conference on data archives, electronic records and access to information
to which Denise Lievesley and Mark Conrad contributed (and which Mark
co-edited). This was the first Irish publication devoted to the theme of
electronic records and data archives.
The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) is funding a project to
investigate the feasibility of an Irish Data Archive. The Data Archive at
Essex was asked to undertake the feasibility study and Bridget Winstanley
attended a scoping meeting in Dublin in December last year. Kevin Schurer
has been appointed to carry out the feasibility study which will report to
the SSRC in June this year.
Ken Hannigan's report pays tribute to the influence of IASSIST on the
activity in Ireland:
"IASSISTers (yourself, Denise, Mark) have been directly involved while
others such as Peggy Adams and Tom Browne have been offering intellectual
and practical support from a distance.
You noted in your report last year that Mark Conrad had been appointed as a
Fulbright Scholar in the Archives Department of University College Dublin
for the academic year 1995-96. He finished his stint in June 1996 but I
think that his influence over the archival profession here will be felt for
a long time to come."
EconData: a Dutch data service for economic data
In the summer of 1996 SWIDOC's Steinmetz Archive started the project
EconData to establish a Dutch data service for economic data. This service
will be integrated with the current activities of the archive. EconData
builds on previous feasibility studies conducted by the Economic and Social
Institute (ESI) in Amsterdam and the Economic Institute Tilburg (EIT). Both
of these studies have been funded by the Netherlands Organization for
Scientific Research (NWO). For EconData the Steinmetz Archive receives
additional funding from NWO. This grant follows on a recommendation by the
Social Science Council (SWR) of the Royal Nether-lands Academy of Arts and
Sciences (KNAW).
EconData aims at broadening the scope of the Steinmetz Archive. New
services will be established to support economic research, including
macro-economics, business eco-nomics and economic modelling. In addition
the more traditional functions of a data archive, EconData puts strong
emphasis on data brokerage. The data service will act as an intermediary
between suppliers of economic data and data users. This will include
suppliers of international data and users of Dutch data abroad. For this
purpose the project plan includes the establishment of an online register
of available data sets, irrespective of whether these data sets are
available from the Steinmetz Archive or from other sources. EconData will
be evaluated after two years.
On July 1 drs. Albert Bots joined the Steinmetz Archive to act as project
coordinator. He is currently active as lecturer at the department of
Economics of the Free Univer-sity, Amster-dam. He is one of the authors of
the aforementioned feasibility study by EIT.
SWIDOC/Steinmetz Archive
EconData
Project Manager Albert Bots
Herengracht 410-412
1017 BX AMSTERDAM - THE NETHERLANDS
The opening of the European Centre for Analysis in the Social Sciences
(ECASS), a new large scale facility in the social sciences for European
research and data analysis at the University of Essex was announced in the
last issue. ECASS is an interdisciplinary research centre which conducts
and facilitates the empirical study of social and economic change by
integrating longitudinal and cross-national European datasets, providing
support services required for their analyses, and acting as the host for
major substantive research programmes, primary among them being
longitudinal household panel and time budget studies. The Centre is
coordinated by Marcia Freed Taylor, with John Brice as Database Manager. A
short regular report on the ECASS activities and developments will appear
in this and subsequent issues.
During its initial three months, the Centre has hosted several longer
research visits, among them a visit of several weeks by Dr. Juergen Schupp
from the Deutsches Institut fuer Wissenschaftsforschung in Berlin. Dr.
Schupp works on the German Socio-economic Panel Study at DIW and carried
out comparative analysis on the British Household Panel Study in
collaboration with Dr. Malcolm Brynin of the ESRC Research Centre on
Micro-social Change. He also spent some time with the Data Archive,
identifying other potential data sources for further comparative work.
A research group from Belgium and the Netherlands, organised by Dr Walter
Van Dongen, visited ECASS in March for a series of collaborative workshops
with members of the ESRC Research Centre on Micro-social Change. A primary
focus of interest of the seven researchers was the study of both the
household division of labour and of female employment using the
cross-national Time Budget data sets held by ECASS and the British
Household Panel Study. Those who visited were from the Population and
Family Study Centre (CBSG) in Antwerp (Van Dongen), the Panel Study of
Belgian Households (Prof. Therese Jacobs), the University of Limburg
(Prof. Mieke Van Haegendoren), and the Department of Comparative
Population and Gender Economics of the University of Amsterdam (Prof.
Hettie Pott-Buter, Dr. Kea Tijdens, Drs Susan Van Velzen and Wouter
Buitenhuis). To continue with the joint research projects begun during
this visit with Prof. Jay Gershuny and Dr Malcolm Brynin of the ESRC
Research Centre, a follow-up visit is planned for later in the year.
The summer will be a particularly busy time, with over 16 fellows present.
Some of these will attend courses at the Essex Summer School in Social
Science Data Analysis and Collection (under full or partial ECASS
bursaries) in addition to the comparative research work carried out using
ECASS resources.
ECASS offers fellowships for periods of two weeks to three months to
scientific researchers carrying out non-proprietary research who are
nationals of a member state of the European Community or of an Associated
State (currently Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Israel), and who are
working inside a member state of the European Community, or an Associated
State. While UK researchers can make use of the facilities and assistance
ECASS provides, EC rules prohibit the payment of travel and/or subsistence
costs. UK researchers are nonetheless urged to apply to ECASS, which will
provide them with help in obtaining access to the data sources on social
change held at Essex and with assistance in their analysis.
Derek Bond is organising the 21st International Conference on Regional and
Urban Statistics to be held in Northern Ireland in June 1998. Topics to be
highlighted include The Creative City, Change of Life Patterns in Cities
and Conurbations, Changes to the Market Environment, Measuring and
Understanding Migration and its Consequences, Round Table Meeting on the
Data Requirements for Urban and Regional Science. The SCORUS conference
will combine the issues associated with data collection and dissemination
with issues of regional policy, economic reform and urban re-generation.
The programme committee welcomes offers of papers for the conference.
Abstracts in either English or French should be sent to D. Bond, Ulster
Business School University of Ulster at Coleraine, Coleraine BT52 1RT U.K.
JISC/NPO Digital Archive Working Group
The Joint Information Systems Committee (of the Higher Education Funding
Councils (U.K)) and the National Preservation Office has set up a Digital
Archive Working Group administered by the British Library Research and
Innovation Centre. IASSIST members Denise Lievesley, Simon Musgrave and
Bridget Winstanley have all been involved in this initiative.
Norwegian Data Service
Congratulations to the Norwegian Data Service on its 25 Anniversary which
took place last year.
Data Librarian appointed at the London School of Economics
Data Librarians are a rare breed in Europe and we are therefore delighted
to welcome the appointment of Simon Brackenbury in this capacity at the
British Library of Political and Economic Science at the LSE. The post is a
new one resulting from increased demand for electronic data in recent
years. Simon's duties will include: locating and acquiring data for staff
and students; cataloguing resources; collating information about data use
at LSE; advising and assisting in the use of software for analysis
and liason with external data providers.
His contact details are:
Simon Brackenbury,
Data Librarian,
British Library of Political and Economic Science,
London School of Economics and Political Science,
10 Portugal Street,
London.
WC2A 2HD.