I^Ssist NEWSLETTER vol.1, no.
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DATA ARCHIVE DEVELOPMENT

Canada- Laine Ruus, Data Library, Computing Centre, University of British Columbia,

2075 Wesbrook Place, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1W5

Europe- not activated

United States- Alice Robbin, Data and Program Library Service, 4452 Social Science

Building, University of Wisconsin-Madison Wisconsin 53706

Mandate

A procedures manual consolidating current archival organizational, administra-

tive, and personnel structures, procedures, and policies as well as recommended

guidlines will be compiled to aid developing archives and to act as a resource guide

for existing archives. Workshops and seminars at various levels will be sponsored

to provide professional training in the skills necessary for effective operation of

a data library, data archive or social science information center .

[Editor's Note: A NEW Action Group on Data Organization and Management has

been constituted to focus on the substantive aspects of data base organization and

management. This action group is described more fully below. The focus of the Data

Archive Development Action Group will be on the more general functional aspects of

establishing, managing and operating a data library, archive, or information center.

The underlined section reflects this change.]

Activities and Plans

This past summer, a very successful workshop on data library organization,
management and user services was held under the auspices of the Inter-University
Consortium for Political Research as a pilot module of the ICPSR's Summer Program.
It was organized and jointly sponsored by lASSIST. It is hoped that a similar
effort will be sponsored by ICPSR and lASSIST next summer. [Editor Note: see
p. for full description of the workshop.]

Members of this action group are developing a detailed outline for the pro-
posed procedures manual. The outline will be circulated to Action Group and
Steering Committee members for connent and revisions by February, 1977. The Ac-
tion Group is also collecting administrative and record-keeping forms from exist-
ing archives. The collection of forms will be annotated for inclusion in the
manual as well as available separately.

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i^SSist NEWSLETTER vol.1, no.

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At the lASSIST-IPSA panel, Martinotti presented an analytic framework for the

historical and present uses of process-produced information by governmental, admin-

istrative and research Institutions and the implications of these data for the Euro-

pean data archives and of the growing demand for policy-oriented data. Some of the

implications he identified included the linking of different data bases, quality of

the data, and the political and institutional nature of the consequences of publicly

supported social science research.

At the lASSIST-IPSA panel, Erwin K. Scheuch provided the session's attendees

with an historical overview of the development of information systems for storage

and management of large data bases. He described the problems encountered with these

information systems, some of the large data bases which have been organized and the

problems utilizing them, the relationship between the data collectors who have been

primarily the public agencies and other communities such as researchers, and the re-

lationship between the data archive and public agency. [Editor's Note: His paper
will be forthcoming.]

Further input from Action Group members will help the group coordinators decide

which projects are of most immediate interest, but tentative plans call for a contin-

uation of the study of confidentiality laws; a preliminary pilot survey of available
files in order to define the magnitude of this potential resource; a documentation
and coding manual specifically for aggregate data; and, a survey of completed resenrch

using process-produced data.

Paul Mdller has suggested the following priorities: (1) an overview (survey)

of process-produced data for each country of interest; (2) decisions and guidelines

on which information should be put into machine-readable form; and, (3) recommenda-
tions to public administrators for preservation of materials for social scientists.

It is likely that given the enormity of the tasks outlined by Mdller and Leavitt
and other issues identified in the MOller memo, these issues might well be handled
by other Action Groups, but these matters are still fluid.

This Action Group will be interacting with QUANTUM, the US Association for
Public Data Use, and other organizations to address subjects of mutual interest.

DATA ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT

Canada- Greg Morrison, Social Science Data Archive, Department of Sociology,
Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario KIS 5E6

Europe- Eric Tannenbaum, Social Science Research Council Survey Archive, University
of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, P.O. Box 23, Colchester, Essex, England C04 3S0

United States- William Gammell, Social Science Data Center, University of Connecti-
cut, Storrs, Connecticut 06268