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Category: Random Thoughts

Statistical Abstract of the United States on the Chopping Block

Published by Iris on Friday, March 18th, 2011

I kept waiting until I had something really substantive to say about this, but my brain has been on the fritz lately so I’ll settle with a purely factual post for those who haven’t yet heard.

About 10 days ago, rumors started flying that the Census Bureau was going to discontinue the Statistical Abstract because of budget cuts. A few days ago, these rumors became more concrete when a member of GovDoc-L called Ian O’Brien, Chief of the Statistical Compendia Branch, and heard that yes, the entire Compendia Branch will be unfunded next year. This means that after more than 130 years of publication, next year there will be no Statistical Abstract (online or in print), and no other titles produced by that branch, either (including the State and Metropolitan Area Data Book and the County and City Data Book. (Here’s the full GovDoc-L post.)

I guess Congress feels that there’s no need to synthesize this information for the public now that the more raw data is out there for messing with. I completely disagree, since usually there’s very little way to tell which group might have collected the data into which dataset until you look at the source notes in the Statistical Abstract.

Several libraries (including mine) are planning to write letters to congress about this. Haley Mooney posted her version for people to use as a starting point for their letters, and I’ll repost it here.

Dear ____,

The U.S. Census Bureau’s Budget Estimates for Fiscal Year 2012 calls for the termination of the Statistical Abstract program.  The library community is deeply upset at the thought of losing access to this important program and urges you to take action to stop this program change.

The Statistical Abstract of the United States is a crucial source in the provision of social, economic, and political indicators to the American public.  The Budget Estimates document suggests that the Statistical Abstract is no longer needed due to the “availability elsewhere of much of the information in the statistical abstract”.  As a reference publication the Statistical Abstract is valued precisely for aggregating in one convenient location a variety of information sources available elsewhere.

The provision of private information not freely available elsewhere is also invaluable.  Published since 1878, this important resource is a staple of reference librarians for its ease of use, comprehensive content, and as a guidebook to statistical sources.

It would be a disservice to the American public to terminate the Statistical Abstract program.  A democratic society is only made possible by an informed citizenry.  The multitude of government statistical programs and publications can be difficult for many members of the public to understand and use.  The government must support programs like the Statistical Abstract that enhance the availability of information.

Many developed countries throughout the world publish Statistical Abstracts.

It is a standard government publication that is universally popular as a tool to understand the state of a nation’s social, political and economic functioning.  Terminating the Statistical Abstract program would lower the United States international standing as free and open society that values unfettered access to information.

Even in these trying economic times the Census Bureau must continue to support the mission of the Department of Commerce to “Improve understanding of the US economy, society and environment by providing timely, relevant, trusted and accurate data, standards and services enabling entities to make informed decisions.”  The Statistical Abstract program clearly supports this goal by providing a valuable directory to the wealth of statistical information produced by the US government and private sources.  We must not let short-sighted and ineffective attempts at lowering the federal deficit stand in the way of upholding the values upon which our nation was founded: a democratic society supported by an informed public.

[Signature]

—-

UPDATE: The ALA Washington Office has issued an action alert with information about whom to contact and what key points would be most valuable for those people to hear from us. I’ll reproduce it here:

Contact appropriators and tell them to oppose the defunding of the Statistical Compendia Branch!

In the coming weeks both the Senate and the House Appropriations committees will be working on the FY2012 budget.  Please take the time to inform them about the importance of the Statistical Compendia Branch’s work.

When President Obama released his 2012 Budget Request to Congress, he included the U.S. Census Bureau’s Budget Estimates, which called for the termination of their Statistical Compendia Branch.

This branch compiles and releases such reports as the Statistical Abstract and the National Data Book that include usable data for the American public.  As the Bureau’s own Budget Estimate states, “the abstract provides a comprehensive summary of industrial, social, economic, and political data…of almost 300 government, private, and international agencies”.

Message to Congress:

  • Continue funding for the Statistical Compendia Branch
  • The Statistical Compendia Branch compiles and releases important reports such as the Statistical Abstract that provide understandable data to a wide swath of the American public.
  • This material is used by librarians, educators, students, private businesses, state and local government officials, etc.
There is no other existing location where this data can be found in a similar usable format.
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An ebook plan by Steve Lawson and Iris Jastram

Published by Iris on Wednesday, March 9th, 2011

Steve Lawson and I were trying to come to grips with what an actual workable plan for ebooks in libraries might look like (something that doesn’t involve arbitrary and ridiculously low check-out limits, a la HarperCollins). And we hatched a cunning plan, which we’ve published over at Steve’s blog: An ebook plan by Iris Jastram and Steve Lawson

Here’s my favorite line, and the one that I think captures the entire plan in a nutshell (and which Steve wrote):

We believe that the publisher should publish, and the library should own, lend, and preserve.

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Our next reference desk should be a dark room with a closed door

Our next reference desk should be a dark room with a closed door

Published by Iris on Wednesday, January 26th, 2011
Free-hand sketch of my side of the reference room

We often joke at my library about how my co-worker and I are always on reference duty even when we’re not at the desk because our offices are the first two in the row of offices along the reference room wall. I had been thinking of it as just one of those things… kind of annoying sometimes but not a huge deal. Now I’m wondering if I can learn from it.

I’m sure his experience is similar to mine, but here’s mine. Students pop in to ask me where a call number is even when someone’s at the desk not 25 feet from me (and far closer to the entrance to the reference room). During the summer when we have “on call” reference, I’m basically always on call, even when I close my door. Today a student worker from the post office asked if she could leave a package with me since the Archives door was closed. (The archives are three floors downstairs.) Last week I was out in the reference area and a student hovered around my closed, dark office door. When asked if he needed to talk to me, he said he just needed help finding if we had the full text of an article. He’d walked right past the staffed desk to find an office, any office, even if it was clearly uninhabited at the time.

This has made me wonder about several things, but two in particular.

  1. Are college students that much more comfortable looking for an office than looking for a desk? Office hours are a fundamental part of a college student’s experience, and maybe there’s something either more legitimate or simply more private about an office.
  2. We designed our desk to be unimposing. It’s not a fortress; it’s a desk much like the other computer tables in the room, except that it’s got a sign hanging over it that says “Research/IT” and it’s positioned so that you walk directly at it as you enter the room. Maybe unintimidating a red herring. Maybe they’re looking for more of a Structure. More of an office… After all, closing my door (and sometimes even turning out my light) should be a bit intimidating, but it clearly doesn’t get in their way. They’re looking for an academic authority figure, and apparently that comes with trappings that don’t include “unintimidating.”
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Once is a fluke, three times is a trend: Digital humanities arrive in my world

Once is a fluke, three times is a trend: Digital humanities arrive in my world

Published by Iris on Tuesday, January 25th, 2011

I’d kind of expected a slow ramp-up. After all, this is the humanities, and as a humanist myself I know that change does happen, but only as long as you don’t watch for it too hard, kind of like watching water boil.  This term, the water boiled.

Within the space of two weeks, three students from three different language & literature majors came to me for advice on scanning, OCR, conventions of web design, hypertext literature, digital annotations, and (of course) copyright. For two of these, the students were developing senior thesis projects outside of the usual templates of a research paper or essay exam.

I foresee discussions about a coordinated support model for student work in the digital humanities in my near future. Luckily, the data services group has been meeting for a couple of years already and probably has some good advice about mounting a service that requires input from multiple departments on campus, so hopefully we can crib from their work.

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