International Statistical Data:
Trends, Sources and Issues
Bobray Bordelon
Princeton University
July 9, 2000
GODORT Program American Library Association
Annual
We will examine:
Examples of Commercial
Publishers
 When one should turn to
commercial publisher
 What to look for

Missions of International
Organizations

If you look at organizational missions
such as those of the International
Monetary Fund, World Bank, UNESCO,
OECD, and the Asian Development Bank,
you will find that most do not mention
supplying free documents as part of their
mission. Their misssions are typically to
provide documentation and data to its
member organizations to aid in their
decision making.
Depositories (United
Nations and partners)





United Nations - 44 in the USA
FAO - 14 in the USA
ILO - 2 in the USA
UNESCO - 2 in the USA
World Bank- 3 in the USA
Asian Development Bank
Depository Program

“introduced in January 1994 in
response to a growing public
demand for information about its
activities. Under the program,
selected ADB publications are
deposited regularly in key libraries
in its member countries.” (8 in
USA)
Types of Commercial
Services
Distributors
 Indexing/Abstracting/Full
text
 Repackagers
 Aggregators

Distributors (select
examples)



Oxford University Press (African
Development Bank, Asian Development
Bank, World Bank, UNIDO, UNDP,
UNEP)
Bernan (various UN, IMF, UNESCO,
World Bank, ILO, EC, OECD
publications)
Edward Elgar (UNIDO’s International
Yearbook of Industrial Statistics)
Indexing/Abstracting/Full
text

Congressional Information
Service’s Index to International
Statistics/Statistical Universe
– States what publication is about
– Indexes and identifies source
– Provides a consistent accession
number
– Documents presented “as is”
– Currently no full text online - this
begins to change August 2000
Repackagers (a select
list)
Chadwyck Healey
 Congressional Information
Services
 EuroMonitor
 Oryx Press

Chadwyck Healey
Gathers publications and
puts them into large sets
(primarily microform but
some electronic)
 “as is” publications
 primarily historical

Chadwyck Healey (select
products)






African Official Statistical Serials, 1867 - 1982
Annual Reports of the World's Central Banks
British Government Publications Containing
Statistics, 1801 - 1977
European Official Statistical Serials, 1841 - 1984
Latin American and Caribbean Official Statistical
Serials, 1821 - 1982
Yugoslav Statistics, 1834 - 1919
Congressional
Information Services

Current National Statistical
Compendiums on Microfiche
– “Comprehensive” collection
of international statistical
yearbooks
EuroMonitor




International Marketing Data
and Statistics
World Consumer Income and
Expenditure Patterns
World Economic Factbook
China Marketing Data and
Statistics
Oryx Press

Statistical Handbook on
Poverty in the Developing
World
Aggregators (a select
list)
RDS - TableBase
 DRI University Program
 Datastream International
 Economist Intelligence Unit
 Country Watch

RDS - TableBase



Pulls together many different
publications (over 1,000 sources)
fully indexed by specific categories
with keyword searching also
available
problem: finding original sources
sometimes tricky since name of
table and not article is often given
DRI University Program




Fully identifies source in online and
printed documentation
On screen only gives databank
item is derived from
Allows mixing and matching of
many sources
Allows user to download into
multiple formats
DRI University Program
Very strong on USA
coverage
 Contains a number of IGO
sources
 Contains few sources
directly from countries
 time series do not go away

Selected DRI Databases







DRI International Economic Database
DRI Canadian Primary Source Database
IMF International Financial Statistics
Database
IMF Direction of Trade Database
IMF Balance of Payments Database
OECD Main Economic Indicators
Database
OECD National Accounts Database
DRI contains data directly from
the following countries:





Belgium, France, Germany
Italy, Netherlands
South Africa, Spain
United Kingdom
United States
Datastream International
Strong country coverage
 Limited IGO data
 Allows complex
downloading through the
use of macros
 time series do not go away

Datastream International
Minimal source
identification
 pay per simultaneous user
 different versions allowing
differing degrees of user
friendliness and
manipulation

THIS PROGRAM ENABLES THE MNEMONIC FOR
A REQUIRED ECONOMIC TIME
SERIES TO BE DETERMINED
COUNTRIES AVAILABLE:
7 CANADA
89 EUROLAND (EUROSTAT & ECB)
29 FRANCE
30 GERMANY
31 ITALY
49 JAPAN
55 JAPAN - IBJ/NIKKO DATABASE
58 SWITZERLAND
1 UNITED KINGDOM
6 UNITED STATES
70 OTHER COUNTRIES A TO M
71 OTHER COUNTRIES N TO Z
77 GLOBAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
INDICATORS
Some of the other countries
covered includes







Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador,
Mexico, Peru,Venezuela
Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka
China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia,
Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam
Kenya, Morocco, South Africa, Zimbabwe
Cyprus, Greece, Turkey
Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia,
Slovakia
Israel, Jordan
Economist Intelligence
Unit




compiled from many different sources as
well as their own researchers
source identification varies; always
identified but sometimes only the agency
services available in paper, on CD, and
via the WEB
superb packaging but very expensive
Country Watch




compiled from many different
sources as well as their own
researchers
source identification varies;
always identified but
sometimes only the agency
available via the WEB
very inexpensive
What to look for in a
commercial product
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ (Cost of
original versus
repackaging)
 Can you get it otherwise?
 Reputation

What to look for in a
commercial product
Does it add value?
 Interface or medium of
presentation
 User Friendliness

What to look for in a
commercial product
Standardization
 Manipulation of data
 Downloading capabilities
and formats
 Is Data kept or does it roll
over?

What to look for in a
commercial product
Documentation
 Identification of original
source
 Methodology
 Customer Service
