sist NEWSLETTER vol.1, no. 1 Activities and Plans A comprehensive questionnaire on archive acquisition policies has been drafted by Marcia Taylor and is now being reviewed by Action Group members in North America and Europe. The questionnaire addresses the criteria for selection including con- tractual obligations, medium of storage, geographic scope, field of study, quality, selection procedures, and incentives and sanctions for encouraging/discouraging deposits. Whereas other Action Groups are concerned with various means of making data accessible to the user, this Action Group will focus on the problems relevant to the initial archival acquisition. Related to this issue is the possibility of joining with other organizations in providing incentives for both academic and governmental data producers to make their data files more generally usable and more widely avail- able. The Action Group intends to address questions of deacquisition as well as acquisition policies to the needs of a local service data library. DATA DOCUMENTATION Canada- Dave L. Salley, Management and Central Services Group, Standards Division, Statistics Canada, Tunney's Pasture, Ottawa, Ontario KIA 0T6 Europe- Cees Middendorp, Steinmetzarchief , Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10, Amsterdam-C. , Netherlands United States- John Grasso, Office of Research and Development, Center for Appalachian Studies and Development, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia 26506 Mandate This group will develop standards for the measurement of variables, i.e., the definition of constructs and their operational isation and measurement. In principle, these standards should be applicable cross-nationally, although this may not always prove to be possible. Standards will be developed for "simple background variables" used in surveys, i.e., educational level, age, head of household, as well as constructs such as job satisfaction, anomia, political interest (i.e., to be measured by a scale or index). Thus, the work of this group will be closely linked to that which is going on regarding the development of social indicators. The codes will be incor- porated into source books to provide researchers with a resource tool for coding and organizing their data consistently. i^Ssist NEWSLETTER vol.1, no. 1 ^ Activities and Plans Cees Middendorp suggests that the work of this Action Group could perhaps be linked to the older inventories by Robinson, et al . of the University of Michigan Survey Research Center. He notes the difficulties in solving the problems and imple- menting the recommendations, that standards can only be developed on the basis of research-evidence, and suggests that revisions will be necessary on the basis of either new theoretical insights or new empirical evidence. At the Steering Committee meeting in Edinburgh, Erwin K. Scheuch of the Institute for Applied Social Research and the Zentralarchiv presented a description of face sheet problems. He described his analysis of 19 studies in which he looked for com- parability of demographic characteristics across studies. His findings indicated that the broad collapsing of categories masked various life cycle and income changes which have occurred over time. On the basis of his preliminary results, he suggested that lASSIST focus on the need for standardizing demographic variables. He also suggested that further study could be carried out by lASSIST members and the results be communi- cated to survey agencies. lASSIST recommendations could be used by these agencies to perfect their survey techniques and would provide lASSIST with an excellent oppor- tunity for impact in the area of standardization of demographic variables. This Action Group has begun reviewing already available material in the field, which includes the work carried out by Scheuch and Van Dusen and Zill at the Center for Coordination of Research on Social Indicators in Washington, D.C. This work will form the basis for a project which will test the value of these independent variables in actual research and provide a basic list of such items with recommended coding schemes. In time, this should lead to the developmert of general recommendations for the design of codes. CLASSIFICATION Canada- not yet activated Europe- Ekkehard Mochmann, Zentralarchiv ftir Empirische Sozialforschung, Bachemer Strasse 40, 5 Ktlln 41, Federal Republic of Germany United States- Sue Dodd, Data Library, Institute for Research in Social Sciences, Manning Hall, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27514 Mandate Existing classification schemes for both studies as a whole and variables within studies would be examined. The results of such a review and recormiendations would be published. Additionally, information required for the cataloguing of machine-readable data in libraries would be researched and concrete guidelines for such catalogues would be formulated. Required classification schemes for the production of indicator source books and variable level retrieval systems will be investigated. The necessary components of an adequate Study Description will be identified.