iBi^sist NEWSLETTER vol.1, no. 3

lASSIST Secretariat Report: United States

Judith Rowe

Princeton University

The report of the United States Secretariat covers the current status of mem-

bership enrollment as well as proposed membership recruitment activity. Specifi-

cally, it addresses the goal of recruiting for Action Group activity all of the

professional staff of each data archive and data library. It includes a general

summary of both secretariat and Action Group activity, as well as a report on the

first North American Action Group Conference in Cocoa Beach. Other topics include

an initial report on the plans for next year's conference and some activities and

programs planned by other organizations which would be of interest to lASSIST mem-

bers. Among the latter are the annual conferences of Special Libraries Association

(SLA), Association of Public Data Users (APDU) and the American Association for In-

formation Science (ASIS), as well as the Inter-university Consortium for Political

and Social Research (ICPSR) workshop for data librarians.

Data Archive Registry-Survey of Past Effort,

Suggestions for the Future

Lisa Lasko
Canadian Consortium for Social Research

The mandate of the lASSIST Action Group for Data Archive Registry is described.

The major portion of the paper is devoted to a brief review, description, and eval-

uation of some of the more important existing directories. These are: Social

Science Data Archives in the United States , published by the Council of Social Sci-

ence Data Archives in 1967; A Directory of Information Resources in the United

States: Social Sciences , 2nd edition, published by the Library of Congress in

1973; the second edition of the Encyclopedia of Information Systems and Services ,

edited by Anthony Kruzas and published in 1974; and the Directory of Data Bases in

the Social and Behavioral Sciences , edited by Vivian Sessions and published in 1974.

Recent developments in data archive registries, such as the UNESCO sponsored

Directory of Data Services and the Directory of Data Centres , to be published by

the Data Clearing House for the Social Science in Canada are also discussed. Es-

sential elements and user requirements of social science data archive directories

are dealt with in reference to these directories.

Finally, a summary of the problems facing the Data Archive Registry Group,

both abroad and in Canada, is given, along with several proposed options include

a discussion of the viability of a Data Archive Registry Group in Canada; unique

contributions to be made in this area, one of which might be a compilation of a

list of subject headings for social science data archives; and, the production of

a directory of data archive personnel.

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