Minutes of the Meeting of
February 8-9, at CSU
Present: Elliott Barkan (SB), Chair; Ted
Anagnoson (LA); Mike Reibel (PO); Don Dixon (SO); Rich Taketa (SJ); Gene Turner
(NO); Dick Shaffer (SLO); Kanghu Hsu (DH); Ed Nelson (Fresno); Jim Ross (BA);
John Korey (PO); Frank Gossett (LB); Paul O’Brien (Stanislaus). Tony Hernandez attended via a phone
connection.
1.
The minutes from the
previous meeting were approved.
2.
The agenda was approved as
submitted.
3.
ICPSR Biennial Meeting in
October, 2001.
A.
Good description of the
meeting in the recent ICPSR Bulletin.
B.
ICPSR Direct – Upon the
recommendation of John Korey, and after discussion, the Council approved a
motion to ask Tony Hernandez to sign up all CSU campuses for ICPSR Direct. This will enable any faculty member,
staff or student to obtain data directly from ICPSR without the intervention of
the SSDBA; the SSDBA staff will still be available for consultation and
assistance with data bases. One
question is what the interface will look like for campus users – will they see
that they can get help from their local Official Representative or from the
SSDBA, or both? Tony agreed to work
out the logistics with the ICPSR.
C.
There is a listserv for all
interested in teaching research methods – info on joining to come from
ICPSR.
D.
An additional representative
from a teaching oriented institution and federation member was elected as part
of the nominating committee’s slate at the meeting, from
E.
The Site for Instructional
Materials and Information has been (or is being) redesigned at the ICPSR. This site has a national scope, as
opposed to the SSRIC’s TRD, which focuses specifically on
F.
The Future of Federated
Memberships – The ICPSR has not worked out its position as yet. There are 13 federations in
4.
Update on the Social Science
Data Base Archive.
A.
Report on the status of our
interactions with the Council of Library Directors and its Electronic Access to
Resources subcommittee. After the
Fall meeting, Barkan’s committee did a report (Kudos to Elliott for a good
report) and then Ed Nelson and Tony Hernandez went to a Council of Library
Directors meeting in December.
B.
Gerry Hanley of Academic
Technology Support in the CSU Chancellor’s Office, provided us with copies of
his presentation on the CSU Digital Library. This was distributed to all
representatives present.
C.
EAR, the subcommittee, has
done an evaluation of the SSDBA.
With 4 as a high grade, our grade is an average of 2.5, with several
criticisms reflecting a perspective that the SSDBA should be a finished and
polished site like Lexis/Nexis or other commercial databases. We clearly need improvements for that to
be the case. The criticisms are
(with comments from the discussion summarized by your note
taker):
(1)
The SSDBA and the databases
are clearly for faculty and graduate students. [But some/much of our existing usage is
with undergraduate classes led by an instructor.]
(2)
The site and the databases
are unusable without special training.
[But this is also true of articles in the hard sciences or theoretical
articles in the social sciences that librarians routinely download for
undergraduates.]
(3)
Many of the EAR users found
uneven accessibility. [Part of
this, Tony said, may be limits on the size of the data line that Cal State LA
has to port to the Internet.]
(4)
The home page is not helpful
and not easy to use. [This can
probably be fixed; we would welcome input from the librarians into a system that
would make it easier to use.]
(5)
In most cases, the archive
provides raw data; students need to know SPSS to analyze the data. [This is partially true; some of the
data could be analyzed with Excel, and SPSS is only one of several statistical
packages supported around the system that can be used to analyze the
data.]
(6)
Data are not current, not up
to date. [This criticism seems
misplaced given the nature of the archive and the agreements with data providers
and users – this is not the web site of the Washington Post or the New York
Times.]
(7)
There is no direct access
without a password, and passwords are difficult to generate. The goal is to shift to IP addresses as
a means of authentication to eliminate this problem.
(8)
Searching the interface is
not easy; the help files are not that helpful. [Tony is shifting to a new search
engine; several representatives around the table had had this feeling also at
one time or another.]
(9)
No help 24 hours a day; how
would support staff be provided?
[This is true of many data bases; the goal of librarian assistance for
the SSDBA is similar to the goal in other areas and for other database
collections – the librarian’s role is to help the user find the data set and
codebook necessary and to assist in the download process. Once the data are downloaded to the
user’s machine, the librarian’s role is over and the SSRIC representative or
faculty member’s role begins. The
data in that sense are just like a complex article in a science journal, where
we do not expect the librarian to be a subject matter expert on the substance of
the article.]
(10)
When requesting help from
the SSRIC rep, .... [missed this one]
(11)
Cost to librarians and
extent of usage à seems too little for the
money expended. [Gerry Hanley needs
to clarify the monetary situation.]
(12)
Much ICPSR data are already
free – why should we be members?
[While some data sets are free, over 90% of the data are not available
without membership. The free data
are the Census and some major studies that are supported by NSF and other
federal grants, like the American National Election
Studies.]
Other points
made:
·
Even with the Census, there
are many technicalities that one does not expect the Librarian to know, and they
do not know, and yet they are already handling access to Census data without
complaint.
·
Ease of use – we will be
developing more instructions and putting them up on the www page.
·
IP authentication –
coming.
·
Search engine – new one by
the end of this FY.
·
They clearly expected
everything to be in place.
·
Tony will be doing FAQ files
– how do I unzip a file? read an
SPSS file? Stuff like that.
·
Tony – will be getting
portal software to make interaction among users easier. Bulletin boards, chat, etc.
·
Variable names –
instructions to open a separate variable name/codebook window along with the
analysis window.
·
Slowness of response – slow
now on all of CSLA campus. Upgrade
coming.
·
Census Ferret – provides
only descriptive information – SSDBA more than descriptive.
·
Field – all databases from
Field that have been received are up and available. January and May of 2001 are up. Later data from 2001 are not received as
yet.
·
Links to ICPSR, Field, Roper
– have to make it clear as to what we have available.
·
Costs – partially
misunderstood – Elliott’s reply to clarify. Hanley needs to clarify the financial
arrangements.
·
The goal of the SSDBA is to
make data available for people who want to manipulate data – within the context
of modern social science, which is clearly grounded on empirical data – not to
give small factoids to people who want a few facts for a report. In this sense the SSDBA is quite
different from many other databases Librarians work with.
·
Some of the librarians have
a kind of community college view – we are strictly an instructional system, not
a system where faculty and graduate student research is supported.
·
Analogies to UC – how do
they do it, through ucdata.ucberkeley.edu.
·
Want a year to get this
accomplished?
5.
Field
Poll.
A.
Two proposals were received
for the Field Faculty Fellow – the Field committee, consisting of Ed Nelson as
chair, Elliott Barkan and John Korey, recommended that the proposal from
Susannah O’Keefe of CSU Sacramento on the living wage be supported and that she
be advised to revise and resubmit to Mark DiCamillo of Field to develop final
wording on a set of questions. This
recommendation would be for both the 12 faculty fellow questions and the six
question credits.
B.
A second proposal, from Amy
Liu of CSU Sacramento – advised to revise and resubmit next year.
C.
Discussion of why there are
not more applications.
(1)
General consensus to send
the notices to the research directors/deans on all the campuses for input into
the campus grant announcement data bases.
D.
No student intern
applications were received.
E.
The Council approved the
recommendation of the Field Committee.
F.
Field’s
schedule:
(1)
February 02 – 1000
registered voters
(2)
May, 02 – 1000
adults
(3)
September, 02 – 1000
registered voters
(4)
October, 02 – 1000
registered voters
(5)
February, 03 – 1000
adults
(6)
May, 03 – 1000
adults
G.
Our preferred date for the
Field Research Conference – 5/17 or 6/14 were supported.
H.
A committee consisting of
John Korey, Ted Anagnoson, and Mike Reitel will develop our own proposal for
questions for next year.
6.
Student Research Conference
– April 26, 2002
A.
Reminder to have students
apply – Papers can be by an individual student, a group of students, or one or
more students with a faculty member.
B.
Abstracts due by
4/4.
C.
Papers by 4/15 to be
considered for an award.
D.
Speaker is George Vernez,
who will talk on “Public Policy Analysis in the Political
Process.”
E.
Dinner Fri night is at
Papaya Bay, a new Thai restaurant.
30th anniversary dinner.
F.
Old SSRIC members will be
invited to the dinner.
7.
Chair for
2002-2003.
A.
Richard Shaffer was
nominated and elected by acclamation.
8.
Old
Business.
A.
SSDBA Funds – there are no funds
controlled by the SSDBA as a whole, but the group that has written several
textbooks has contributed the royalties to a fund controlled by that group and
sometimes used for SSRIC purposes.
B.
m/s/p to honor a member of
the SSRIC at the 30th anniversary dinner – committee consisting of
Gene Turner, Elliott Barkan, Rich Taketa, and Jim Ross is to develop an
appropriate honor.
C.
The same committee will
determine an appropriate role for Charles McCall at the meeting, including
having him present the “Charles McCall Prize” etc.
D.
Members shared their current
research
and other interests.
Meeting adjourned at 3.55
p.m.
Ted
Anagnoson
Los
Angeles
Temporary
Scribe
2/10/02