DLI Toolkit – A Crash
Course in being the DLI
Contact
Beyond the Statistics Canada/DLI Web
Site
Jean Blackburn and Daniel Beaulieu, ACCOLEDS 2004 at Kelowna
Where am I coming from?
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Small, primarily undergraduate institution
Research and Scholarly activity only
beginning to be an institutional priority
On average, I spend only about 5% of my
time on data services, and requests for DLI
data are few and far between (5 per year on
average)
I am neither the Gov Docs nor the Social
Sciences librarian (nor business!)
Shaping a small-scale data service
For inspiration, see Garth Homer’s “Data Provision
in a Small Library” presentation from the 2001
ACCOLEDS Training Sessions
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Finding data
Getting data
Viewing data
Managing data
Teaching and promoting datam -- ambition, not
reality, at this point!
Finding Data: Reference
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Ensure your reference colleagues are
comfortable answering questions about
statistics
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Periodic refresher workshops for other reffies on
STC’s web-based statistics resources are a great
way to build a “tier one” data reference service.
Finding Data: Reference
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If you or your user is unclear about his/her
needs, you will want to determine whether
the user wants statistics, aggregate data or
microdata – and what the user is equipped to
deal with.
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See Chuck Humphrey’s “A Framework for
Thinking about Statistical Information”
presentation and associated Computing Exercise
and Answer Key
Finding Data: Reference
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Important information to gather in a reference
interview includes the variables needed, level
of geography needed, currency needed,
longitudinal span needed, suitable method of
distribution, and how the material will be used
(see “Managing Data”)
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See Vince Gray’s PowerPoint presentation
“Fielding Reference Questions” from the 2004 DLI
Training Sessions in Kingston, ON
Finding Data: Reference
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When you know the need is for microdata,
know when to mention an RDC! Be prepared
to explain STC’s confidentiality requirements,
and, if you like, some methods of
anonymizing data.
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E.g. See SLID Research Series article
“Confidentiality of SLID Microdata: General
Approach”
Or the 2001 Census Dissemination Project’s
“Data Quality and Confidentiality Standards and
Guidelines (Public)”
Finding Data: Reference
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Encourage users to find and peruse
documentation themselves (IF it doesn’t take
more time to explain the web site to users!)
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Explain troubleshooting PDFs
Give yourself time – and ask your users to
give you time
Search the DLI List for expert advice
(example)
Chuck to the
rescue!
Finding Data: Search Tools
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The Daily
Online catalogue search
DLI Collection search
E-STAT / CANSIM
DLI List search
Google – Site Search
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Example search string: beyond 20/20 site:statcan.ca
OR go to Google Advanced Search and enter statcan.ca in the
domain field
Finding Data: Documentation
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Documentation formats are not always
predictable!
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PDFs can be difficult to open
Some *.txt files are better opened in Word and
Internet Explorer than in Wordpad or NotePad
(example)
What’s with the LMAS codebook?
Check the DLI List!
The DLI team can help!
Getting Data and Documentation
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Survey data are available from the DLI Web
collection and may be downloaded WITH DLI
username and password
Need compression tool (e.g. WinZip,
WinRAR, PowerArchiver) to “unzip” zip files
All that and MORE (Census, geography files,
software) available from the FTP collection.
This collection is, generally speaking, more
complete and up-to-date than the Web
collection.
Getting Data and Documentation:
FTP site
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ftp.statcan.ca in FTP client, or
ftp://dli@ftp.statcan.ca in your web browser
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FTP clients include WS-FTP; FileZilla is free;
CuteFTP has a French version.)
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Need to know survey acronyms!
Getting Data and Documentation:
FTP cont’d.
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Need compression tool (e.g. WinZip, WinRAR,
PowerArchiver) to “unzip” zip files
Need ‘Maxline’ (on FTP site  util  maxline.exe)
to check/confirm the number of records in the data
file (compare with what it says in the readme file)?
Chuck and Laine say it’s essential!!
See Chuck Humphrey’s “Product Retrieval”
presentation from 2001 ACCOLEDS Training
Sessions and pp. 1-5 of his associated “Computing
Exercise”
See Laine Ruus’s “DLI Toolkit” presentation from the
DLI training sessions in Kingston, 2004
Getting Data and Documentation
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Extraction tools such as:
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IDLS
LANDRU
QWIFS
Sherlock
Are data in these systems “cleaner” – or is it the
SPSS code that is responsible for “dirt”?
Get hooked up if you can…
Do we need a national value-added initiative that all
DLI member institutions contribute to?
How do NESSTAR and/or SDA fit into this?
Viewing Data: Beyond 20/20
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For viewing aggregate data tables, e.g.
“Topic-based tabulations” from Census 2001
Beyond 20/20 is distributed by Statistics
Canada
There are great training exercises by Walter
and Laine on the University of Toronto Data
Service web site
Viewing Data: SPSS
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In a small data service, transforming the “dat” files
you procure from the Web or FTP collections into
SPSS formatted files is about the limit!
Sometimes there are no SPSS syntax files (e.g.
1990 LMAS, 1976 Census) – what to do? Check the
DLI list and/or other large university data web sites.
Some faculty will need SPSS support – purchase
manuals for collection and start up an ‘SPSS
Support Group” among faculty.
See Chuck Humphrey’s “Product Retrieval”
presentation from 2001 ACCOLEDS Training
Sessions and his associated “Computing Exercise”
Managing Data
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The DLI license
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How do you recognize appropriate and
inappropriate use?
See this great tutorial by Sage Cram and
Elizabeth Hamilton from the 2001 ACCOLEDS
training session in Victoria.
Access to files
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How will clients use the files: individually? In
teams? From one location or multiple locations?
Will a CD-R work for the user, or a shared (among
approved users only) network directory?
Teaching and promoting data:
Data or Statistical Literacy
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A future direction…
I need to find ways to bring the DLI resources
to our undergraduate students to support
numeric literacy, spatial literacy, media
literacy, political literacy, etc
My suggestion for future ACCOLEDS training
sessions is: more undergrad-education (i.e.
literacy) content!