Counting California is shutting down
June 1, 2008. Learn more.
Counting California Is:
A new initiative committed to enhancing California citizens'
access to the growing range of social science and economic data produced
by government agencies. In a departure from more static
formats, Counting California's
single interface enables users access to public use data
compiled by federal, state, and local agencies, and also allows users to
collate and integrate data by topic, geography, title, and provider.
Counting California also addresses the serious preservation dilemma
posed by ever-changing technology and data formats, insuring easy and continuous
access to historical and current information.
Counting California Partners:
Counting California is funded by the California Digital Library.
A portion of the funding for Phase I of Counting California comes
via special arrangement with the Library of California. This
interagency agreement stipulates that the Library of California
provide funding, and the CDL implement the project. Some of
the funding for Phase II comes through a grant from the Library
Services and Technology Act (LSTA), administered by the
California State Library.
We are seeking strategic partners to work with us to acquire data.
We would welcome the opportunity to work with California
State or federal data providers. If you are
interested in contributing to Counting California, please contact
Rosalie
Lack, Project Manager (Rosalie.Lack@ucop.edu).
Rising to the Challenge
The Change in Access to Government Information:
Government data serve as varied a clientele as there are Californians,
ranging from businesses and private citizens to some of the most prominent
educational and research institutions in the world. With a population and
economy larger than those of many European countries, the state of California's
need for continuous and uniform access to government-produced data has
never been more urgent.
Ironically, though, the digital technologies that in recent years have
revolutionized data distribution have also created unintentional
problems.
What was once a stable system of print materials has given way to a diffuse,
constantly changing array of electronic media, each using different formats
and access methods. The current climate leaves many
would-be users frustrated or bewildered; each new upgrade
of software and web browsers only exacerbates the problem.
Preservation and consolidation of historical, or time-series, data are
similarly at risk. Government agency web sites often
mount new information,
but may follow no systematic plan to preserve older, historical data as
each update supersedes the last. The lack of cumulative time-series data
can effectively cripple any attempt to
discern long-term trends and changes.
Goals of Counting California
The need for uninterrupted data access and the preservation
of historical data are the two biggest problems facing government data
distribution today.
Counting California's goals respond directly
to these challenges:
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To provide flexible, user-friendly access to government produced data that
meets the diverse needs of the California citizenry;
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To insure uniform, continuous access to both current and historical government
data; and
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To foster the ability to share data and work collaboratively between government
agencies and other members of the data community.
Technology, Innovations, and Core Components
One of Counting California's primary aims is to encourage
collaboration, and the ability to share our work with data producers and
other members of the data community. Accordingly, we have adopted several
measures to promote universal standardization:
Data Documentation Initiative (DDI): For the past several years
the social science data community has been working on the Data Documentation
Initiative (DDI) to produce a metadata standard for social science data
resources. The DDI "is an effort to establish an international criterion
and methodology for the content, presentation, transportation, and preservation
of 'metadata' about the datasets in the social and behavioral sciences."
The DDI committee has produced the Data Documentation Initiative Schema
(DTD Schema) as the foundation of for the processing of metadata.
DDI Schema and XML: Using the eXtensible Markup Language
(XML) as a platform, Counting California is incorporating
the DDI schema into its architecture. XML, a dialect of the more general
SGML markup language, is used for marking up the metadata.
In recent years there has been explosive growth in the use of XML and web-based
XML tools including databases, search engines, and editors. As we build
additional functionality into Counting California, we will support
other XML tools.
In keeping with our goals, we intend to make our DDI metadata available
to the scholarly community. Links to actual XML will be available
from the web site. We will encourage others to build upon
our work in creating alternate applications that can also be shared.
SAS IntrNet: The backbone of Counting California's data
delivery capacities is SAS IntrNet, which allows for the integration of
SAS and the World Wide Web. Specifically, SAS allows for data extraction
via the metadata database and provides the ability to format the data in
tables, charts, maps, and graphs. In the future, we hope to
take full advantage of SAS IntrNet's capabilities as we add
functionality to the system.
Open Communication: Throughout the development of
Counting California, the project team has relied heavily on the
expertise of the data community and the Data
Documentation Initiative committee.
The DDI committee members provided guidance in the early stages of the
project by answering our many questions about the DDI schema.
In the future, CDL will be participating as a member of the DDI committee to
help further the goals of the DDI schema.
Project Participants:
Several individuals have contributed to Counting California's
development. Counting California project team is unique in that
it draws on staff throughout the University of California system.
The project would not have been possible without the expertise, enthusiasm,
and dedication of the following team members:
Project Team:
Rosalie Lack, Manager of Public Content, California Digital Library.
Project responsibilities: project manager.
Patricia Cruse, Director, Digital Preservation Program, California
Digital Library. Project responsibilities: project manager.
Ilona Einowski, Assistant Director for User Services, UC Data Archive &
Technical Assistance, University of California, Berkeley. Project
responsibilities: metadata, numeric data, and consultant.
Fred Gey, Assistant Director, UC Data Archive & Technical Assistance,
University of California, Berkeley. Project
responsibilities: Consultant.
Margaret Low, Programmer Analyst, California Digital Library.
Project responsibilities: technical coordination and administration,
data discovery, production control and management, database designer,
and DDI schema specialist.
Michael Russell, Software developer, California Digital Library.
Project responsibilities: General
architecture, Data administration
and programming, and XML development.
The California Digital library wishes to thank the following individuals
for their contributions. The project owes much to
their comments, suggestions,
and ideas.
Cavan Capps, Bureau of the Census.
Ann Green, Director, Social Science Statistical Laboratory, Yale
University.
Jim Jacobs, Data Services Librarian, University Library, University of
California, San Diego.
Juri Stratford, Government Information Librarian, University
of California, Davis.
Wendy L. Thomas, Data Archivist, Minnesota Population Center, University
of Minnesota.
Mary Vardigan, Interuniversity Consortium for Political and
Social Research.
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