DPLS News September 1993 What's New at DPLS? Greetings and welcome to the third issue of DPLS News. This newsletter is distributed to members of the faculty in social science and other departments. It is our hope that you find this publication useful, and your feedback is encouraged. We ask you to share this newsletter with graduate students and other researchers who may not have received it. More copies are available for interested individuals at the library. For those of you not familiar with the DPLS, we are the primary campus-wide clearinghouse for the acquisition, documentation, information referral, storage and access to social science machine-readable data. We can aid you in analyzing your data needs, identifying available data for use or purchase, acquiring andmaking data available for use, as well as providing some technical assistance. Later in the newsletter we will describe some of the new data sets that have been received this summer. There are also a number of new developments at the library you might find of interest. We have begun to migrate our small to mid- sized data files to Digital Audio Tape (DAT). These small (4mm) tapes can hold a tremendous amount of data -- many times more than our traditionally used 1/2:round tapes contain. The advantage for our users is that the data on thesetapes are almost instantaneously accessible, by passing the need for mainframe-based 1/2: tape drives. The DPLS has received several PC-based international social and economic indicator databases that we are making available to users. These include the World Bank's World Tables, the German Socio-Economic Panel, and the CoWorks Time Series Library. If you are interested in using any of these data, please come talk with us. To catch up with all that's been happening, we encourage you to visit us duringour open house, which will be held Wednesday, October 8, in room 3313 from 2 to 4 P.M. Come acquaint yourself with our services and friendly staff!. Data News Users of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) will be interested to learn that the 1968-1989 data are now available, including special wealth data. The creators of the PSID are already preparing the 1990 data. Because the logical record size of the main files has reached its maximum limit, a totally new filestructure is being developed. The 1968-1989 CD-ROM data will be in this newformat when it is released early next year. The 1992 General Social Survey Reinterview has been made available to users, and the 1993 data, with its topical module on culture, is now being readied for distribution. The 1993 survey achieved the highest GSS response rate ever, 82.4percent. Special questions in the 1993 data include items about knowing peoplewith AIDS, sexual behavior, and on images of God and prayer. Users are currently being asked for ideas about content for the topical and mini-modules on the 1996 GSS. National Longitudinal Survey data continue to be released for a number of the cohorts. The 1979-1991 Youth cohort is now available on CD-ROM, and the 1968- 1991 Young Women's Data, as well as updates to the Mature Women Surveys, shouldbe available sometime later this year. A number of past and present DPLS usershave recently published research based on the NLS. These include Doug Anderson,Marieka Klawitter, George Kephart, Maureen Pirog-Good, and Helen Petracchi. New Data on CD-ROM National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience, Youth Cohort 1979- 1991. These yearly surveys chronicle major life changes and provide a rich resource for data analysis in the areas of job mobility, job training, educational attainment, wages, racial differences, marriage, and childbearing. The CD-ROM provides sophisticated software that allows users to select variables and filter cases, generate codebooks of selected variables, produce SAS or SPSS/PC statements, and subset data. National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988: Base Year and the First Follow- up. NELS is a recent national longitudinal survey of students who were in 8th gradein 1988. It is designed to provide panel data about critical transitions experienced by young people as they develop, attend school, and embark on their careers. Users can search variables by key words or variable names, display frequencies and question texts, and select variables for subsequent analysis using SAS or SPSS/PC statements. High School and Beyond, 1980-1986. HS&B is a national longitudinal study of individuals who were high school seniors and sophomores in 1980. Information has been collected every two years on the two cohorts from high school into early adulthood. Student data plus supplemental files for both cohorts are included on this CD-ROM. Electronic codebooks, text file manuals and SPSS program files are included to assist users. Access to statistical packages such as SAS or SPSS/PC are needed to extract subsets from HS&B CD-ROM. National Health Interview Survey, 1987. National Health Interview Survey, 1988. This personal interview survey is conducted annually by the National Center forHealth Statistics. Its purpose is to obtain information on personal and demographic characteristics, illnesses, injuries, impairments, chronic condition and other related health characteristics from a national sample of individuals. Each CD-ROM contains core data and all supplemental files. Documentation and software called the Statistical Export and Tabulation System (SETS) are also included. SETS allows you to browse the documentation and the data files, create and display tables in spreadsheets, specify files, fields and records, and export files in dBase or in ASCII format with associated SAS or SPSS/PC input statements. The above titles are only a partial listing of DPLS holdings on CD-ROM. Please feel free to ask our staff for a list of the complete holdings. New Acquisitions from ICPSR Listed below are studies recently received from the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. The DPLS catalog number follows each citation. Morgan, James N., Greg J. Duncan, Martha S. Hill and James Lepkowski. Panel Study of Income Dynamics, 1968-1989 (Waves I-XXII). (CA-016-045) Reif, Karlheinz and Anna Melich. Euro-barometer 31A: European Elections, 1989: Post-election Survey, June-July 1989. (LA-527-033) Elliott, Delbert. National Youth Survey (United States): Wave VI, 1983. (QK-031-006) Reif, Karlheinz and Anna Melich. Euro-barometer 37.0: Awareness and Importance of Maastricht and the Future of the European Community, March-April 1992. (LA-527-032) Congressional Quarterly, Inc. Voting Scores for Members of the United States Congress, 1945-1982. (MA-007-001) United States Department of Education. National Center for Educational Statistics. National Education Longitudinal Study, 1988: First Follow-up School Data. (QD-020-003) International Social Survey Program (ISSP). International Social Survey Program: Role of Government, 1985-1986. (SA-520-001), Role of Government II, 1990. (SA-520-002) Federal Judicial Center. Federal Court Cases: Integrated Data Base, 1970-1991. (GA-014-001) United States Department of Commerce. Bureau of the Census. Annual Survey of Governments, 1991: Employment Statistics. (JC-004-021) Johnston, Lloyd D., Jerald G.Bachman, and Patrick M. O'Malley. Monitoring the Future: a Continuing Study of the Life-styles and Values of Youth, 1991. (QK- 027-016) Pearson, Frederic S. and Robert A. Baumann. International Military Intervention, 1946-1988. (FE-507-001) Sylla, Richard E., John B. Legler and John Wallis. Sources and Uses of Funds in State and Local Governments, 1790-1915: (United States). (JC-009-001) Thornton, Arland and Deborah Freedman. Intergenerational Study of Parents and Children, 1962-1985: (Detroit) (QN-016-001) United States Office of Personnel Management. Survey of Federal Government Employees, November 1991-February 1992 (United States). (JA-006-001) Schuman, Howard and Cheryl Rieger. Historical Analogies, Generational Effects and Attitudes Toward War in the United States, October 1990- February 1991. (SA-037-001) United States Department of Health and Human Services. Agency for Health Care Policy and Research. National Medical Expenditure Survey 1987: Household Survey, Prescribed Medicine Data (Public Use Tape14.1). (QG-015-018). The Internet Corner Center for Electronic Records Source for Government-collected Data Machine-readable data files produced by the U. S. Government deemed to have historical value are stored at the Center for Electronic Records of the National Archives. An FTP site provides descriptions of the Center's services and an up-to-date, partial Title List of holdings representing an extraordinary range of topics from government agencies' data collection efforts. For example, attitudinal surveys of American soldiers during World War II date back to 1945, while other military data include use of herbicidal sprays and other operations during the Vietnam conflict. Health survey data and government studies conducted in the seventies and eighties to assess federal programs such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children are also held. Education data are abundant, ranging from standardized test score results to school financing to the Civil Rights Commission's 1976 School Superintendents Survey regarding desegregation. Economic data available include income, labor, securities, tax, trade, and transportation statistics, as well as work experience surveys and import/export statistics from the 1960s. Demographic data from the Bureau of the Census and other agencies are held, as well as political data including Watergate records and over 500 attitudinal surveys by the U. S. Information Agency conducted in several countries. Data files which are held by the Center may be purchased at a reasonable cost-recovery rate on one of two media: 3480-class cartridge, or 9-track reel tape, written in either ASCII or EBCDIC format. Print documentation will be photocopied for 25 cents/page. The DPLS has acquired several National Archive data sets, including the War Relocation Authority Form 26: Evacuee Summary Data, 1942, produced by the War Relocation Authority. These data contain information about Japanese-Americans interned in ten camps during World War II. If you would like to browse the (partial!) title list yourself, you may obtain a copy through file transfer protocol (FTP) from this address: FTP.CU.NIH.GOV (Login as *anonymous: and type *guest: for password). Change directory to NARA_ELECTRONIC and get the file TITLE.LIST.JUL1993. If you do a directory listing you will find a few brief informational files that you may also download. Economic Bulletin Board Access. The Commerce Department's EBB is now available free to Internet users. One easy way to access it is by telneting to HERMES.MERIT.EDU, host is *UM- ULIBRARY:. At the login type *gopher:. Choose Social Sciences Resources from the main menu, then Economics. The Economic Bulletin Board provides foreign exchange rates as well as lots of other options such as employment and industry data, economic indicators and reports. Check out this server for other great social science tidbits as well! DPLS Enters Gopher-space on WiscINFO. Now DPLS fans can keep up with the times through our new entry on the user-friendly WiscINFO gopher menu (available from any campus computer or at the address *wiscinfo.wisc.edu:. Just choose *Library Catalogs and Holdings: from the main menu, then *Data and Program Library Service:. At this point, the viewing choices are: *Holdings and Use of the Data and Program Library Service:; *What is the ICPSR?: and back issues of *DPLS News: in plain ascii format. More is sure to come.