Numeric Data Services and Sources for the General Reference Librarian

235 Pages·2011·2.22 MB·English

by  Lynda Kellam and Katharin Peter (Auth.)

Numeric Data Services and Sources
for the General Reference Librarian
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Numeric Data Services
and Sources for the
General Reference
Librarian
L M. K
YNDA ELLAM
with contribution from Katharin Peter
Chandos Publishing
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First published in 2011
ISBN:
978 1 84334 580 0
© L.M. Kellam, 2011
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Thank you to Daniel, my husband, and my parents for
putting up with the process and still loving me. I dedicate
this book to Daniel, Becki, and Ed.
List of fi gures and tables
Figures
1.1 Example of basic input of survey data into a
spreadsheet 10
1.2 A bar graph depicting the distribution of student
respondents to the survey by class 11
1.3 Fact sheet from American FactFinder showing
social characteristics from the 2000 Census for
New York, NY 13
6.1 Example of a basic map created using GIS
that includes spatial data of the Southeastern
United States 163
6.2 Pie charts showing different distributions 165
and
6.3
Tables
1.1 Example of statistics generated from the
survey data 11
1.2 Median age by sex for the total population of
New York City and for the white population of
New York City from the detailed tables in the
2000 Census 14
xi
Numeric Data Services for the General Reference Librarian
1.3 Sample code for variable ‘HISPAN’ from
the PUMS fi le for 2000 Census of Population
and Housing Technical Documentation
(U.S. Census Bureau 2003). These are only
a few of the possible categories for ‘HISPAN’ 17
xii
About the authors
Lynda M. Kellam is the Data Services and Government
Information Librarian at the University of North Carolina at
Greensboro’s University Libraries where she is based in the
Reference and Instructional Services Department. In addition
to her primary duty as data services librarian, she manages
UNCG’s federal and state government depositories, serves
as collection and instruction liaison to the Political Science
Department and several social sciences programs, and
co-ordinates the Reference Internship Program.
She completed her Bachelor of Arts in political science at
the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1997 and
began study in political science at the University of Wisconsin,
Madison. Her studies in Madison focused on the countries
of the former Yugoslavia and national identity formation.
After leaving Wisconsin with a Master’s degree in 2001, she
studied in Croatia on a Fulbright student fellowship where
she worked with B.a.B.e. (Budi activna, Budi emancipirana),
a leading women’s rights group, as a researcher and editor.
Working with B.a.B.e. reinforced her passion for assisting
others with research and led her to explore the possibility of
social science librarianship.
Upon returning to the United States, she enrolled in the
Master’s of Library and Information Studies program at the
University of North Carolina at Greensboro where she
concentrated in academic libraries, social science research,
and instruction. After graduation in May 2007 UNCG’s
University Libraries hired Lynda as the institution’s fi rst Data
xiii
Numeric Data Services for the General Reference Librarian
Librarian with the charge of crafting the direction of this
position. Her focus in the past four years has been on out-
reach and promotion, collection development, and instruction.
As the users at UNCG are relatively diverse (from novice
data users to the data savvy), she has had to examine the full
range of “levels of service.”
She has been active in the profession at the state, national,
and international levels. She serves on the conference
planning committee for the International Association of
Social Science Information Services and Technology, the
primary data librarianship association, and works closely
with the American Library Association’s Government
Documents Round Table. She was named an American
Library Association Emerging Leader in 2010 and received
the Association of College and Research Libraries Librarian
Scholarship in 2009. She is also a member of the American
Political Science Association.
The author may be contacted at: UNCG, Jackson Library,
PO Box 26170, Greensboro NC 27402-6170, USA. E-mail:
[email protected]
Katharin Peter is Social Sciences Data Librarian for the Von
KleinSmid Center Library for International and Public
Affairs at the University of Southern California where she
established library data services in 2007. Prior to USC,
Katharin spent 6 years as a research analyst and data
professional, conducting research for publication by the
National Center for Education Statistics and other agencies.
She has a BA in Sociology from the University of California,
Santa Cruz and an MLIS from Pratt Institute, New York.
xiv
Acknowledgements
‘This was the best IASSIST ever!’ is the fi nal offi cial statement
made by the organization’s President at the end of every
annual conference. As the leading organization for data
professionals and librarians, IASSIST also has a tremendously
welcoming group of members. As such, this book would not
be possible without the direct help of many and the indirect
infl uence of a few.
I fi rst want to thank Katharin Peter for both contributing
to this work with her excellent chapter on data sources, but
also for putting up with my unintelligible emails for over a
year. I have a tendency of roping her into projects and she
always responds with wonderful grace and good humor.
Thank you also to the entire group of data librarians
mentioned in Appendix A who contributed either by reading
chapters or answering the informal interview. Special thanks
to Kristin Partlo for her words of wisdom in Chapter 3.
In addition to the contributors there are several data
specialists who assisted indirectly with the production of this
work. This book is partly the result of my attendance at the
ICPSR data librarianship workshop conducted by Chuck
Humphrey and Jim Jacobs. They have trained many new
data librarians over the years, and without their efforts we
would not have a framework for developing data services.
With this work, I want a wider audience of non-data
librarians to learn from their contributions.
I also want to thank my colleagues at the University of
North Carolina at Greensboro for assisting me, especially
xv