Dissertation Information for Howard D. White NAME: - Howard D. White
- (Alias) Howard White - (Alias) Howard Dalby White
DEGREE:
- Ph.D.
DISCIPLINE:
- Library and Information Science
SCHOOL:
- University of California, Berkeley (USA) (1974)
ADVISORS: - Patrick Wilson
COMMITTEE MEMBERS: - Raynard C. Swank - Harold L. Wilensky
MPACT Status: Incomplete - Not_Inspected
Title: Social Science Data Sets: A Study for Librarians
Abstract: This study aims at showing academic librarians how to bring their services into closer integration vlith those of social science data archivists without necessarily taking over the full range of archival services Academic libraries can extend and improve on the present reference capability of data archives by making information about data more widely available through library channels. This information is contained in human-readable tools that some data archives issue: catalogues of surveys, polls, and statistics offered in machine-readable form, indexes to questions in particular surveys, and especially codebooks, which give the questions and and responses of each survey and the numerical codes that are necessary to produce tables from the response data by computer~ Libraries can introduce new forms of bibliographical control over these materials and deploy them more adequately even if they do not initiate services based on tapes or punched cards. Chapter I describes machine-readable data sets and the movement in the social sciences that, has led to their preservation in archives. while some libraries have acquired the 1970 u.s. Cen3US data in machine-readable form, libraries generally have not; managed the social science data sets on their campuses. Some persons, however, have argued that libraries and data archives should merge, on the ground of similarity of functions and tasks. Chapter I bas a critique of writings of persons who have made this argument. Chapter II analyzes the claim that librarians and data archivists do the same things; the problems the latter face under such familiar headings as acquisitions, cataloguing, indexing, referencing, and storage and maintenance of stock are discussed in some detail. In Chapter III a general description of publishing is set forth in order to argue that some data archives are publishers, taking on tasks that no library has ever done. It is stressed, however, that -libraries could buy human-readable items from these archives just as they buy books and journals from more conventional publishers, and that such items could be handled with existing technology. Chapter IV outlines a plan whereby library capability would be exploited to achieve greater equality of access to data than now obtains. The remaining three chapters focus on data-buying patterns at two "publisher" archives: the International Data Library and Reference Service, University of California at Berkeley; and the Roper Public Opinion Research Center, Williams College, Williamstown, Mass. A sample of transactions from IDL&RS was analyzed for the period 1960-70; from Roper, for the period 1970-72. The purchase of full data sets, as opposed to codebooks only, is found to be related to being male, but not to one's academic status or the prestige of one's department. It is also related to nearness to the archive (in the case of IDL&RS) and to membership in Roper's customer organization. Finally, it is related to the fact that a scholarly publication has been based on the data. The market for information about data--i.e., codebooks--is shown to be substantial at both archives, amounting to about half of sales. The final chapter gives guidelines to the acquisitions librarian who is interested in buying data access tools. "Heavy" buyers of the past are characterized, and so are best selling IDI&RS data sets.
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MPACT Scores for Howard D. White A = 7
C = 18
A+C = 25
T = 10
G = 2
W = 7
TD = 8.5
TA = 1
calculated 2008-07-06 20:25:49
Advisors and Advisees Graph
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