CANSIM by Geographical Area

Question

Is it possible to get a list of CANSIM series by geographical area? I am most interested in identifying those that are at the CMA/CA level. It was suggested that I search by keyword for the area e.g. Toronto but I was hoping for something a little easier than this.

Answer

If there is a metadata field for geography in the CANSIM record, it doesn't appear to be indexed for searching purposes, although this is a reasonable search field to expect to find in CANSIM. After all, there are 2667 tables with Geography included in the "Dimension descriptions".

EA Boundary Files for 1981 Census

Question

One of our biologists is looking at birds and needs to map population density at the EA level from 1981 to 2001. He (and I) can only find CSD-level data for 1981. Do these data exist? I've checked the DLI ftp site and can't find anything below CSD for 1981.

Answer

It turns out that Statistics Canada never produced EA boundary files for the 1981 Census and the land area is not available for your researcher to calculate the population density.

LSIC Wave 3

Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada - Wave 3

This survey was designed to provide information on how new immigrants adjust to life in Canada and to understand the factors that can help or hinder this adjustment. The data will be used to evaluate the current services available and help improve them.

Format available: CD-ROM at RDC

NOTE:
There will not be a PUMF
This is the last wave for this survey

Variables in National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth cycles

Question

A student is asking why, in the primary PUMF files for the NLSCY, the numbers of variables are so different:

cycle 1 - 1415 variables
cycle 2 - 913 variables
cycle 3 - 331 variables

I'm guessing it's because of the increasing need to drop variables to protect confidentiality as the survey continued, but he wants to make sure. Am I right, or were variables dropped on a whim?

Answer

We had a presentation from the folks looking at longitudinal PUMFs at the last EAC meeting. The issue of dropping variables was brought forth and the answer was that they are ensuring that respondent confidentiality does not become an issue when a file is longitudinal. This helps explain when the numbers of variables shrinks from cycle to cycle - the more detail is available, the more risky it becomes.

Personal Savings Rate

Question

I am looking for the personal savings rate for people with specific income levels. If you know where I can find this, please let me know.

Answer

STC does not measure savings rate by income levels. We have it by province or for Canada as a whole.

Survey of Innovation

Question

Will there be a DLI release for the 2005 Survey of Innovation as in 2003?

Answer

As a result of the html requirements we have adjusted our diffusion strategy. We do not have the capacity to make the tables available in both Excel and html and so we decided to make use of CANSIM. 2005 data will be made available on CANSIM. We already had a release in the Daily in June 2006. We are in the process of creating detailed statistical tables. One set of data is already available on CANSIM (Table 358-0062). Data from 2003 is also available on CANSIM (358-0027 to 358-0061)

Updated Products - CSGVP / SWH / FPI / CBP

Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating - 2004

The public use microdata file from the 2004 Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating (CSGVP) is now available. This file contains information collected from more than 20,000 respondents aged 15 and over residing in private households in the 10 provinces.

The public use microdata file provides provincial-level information about the ways in which Canadians donate money and in-kind gifts to charitable and nonprofit organizations; volunteer their time to these organizations; provide help directly to others; and participate as members in groups and organizations. Socio-demographic, income and labour force data are also included on the file.

FTP: /ftp/dli/csgvp
WEB: http://www.statcan.ca/english/Dli/Data/Ftp/csgvp.htm

Survey of 1981 Work History

This survey attempted to answer the following: How many employees, working less than 120 hours per month, preferred to work more hours, and what were the main reasons preventing them from doing so? among those who changed employers, were there any pattern to the type of industry or occupation change? did wage rates of full-time and part-time workers vary significantly? were people in a particular age group more or less likely to change employers during the year than those in another age group? and to what extent did part-time workers contribute to the total family income?

FTP: /ftp/dli/swh
WEB: http://www.statcan.ca/english/Dli/Data/Ftp/whs.htm

Financial Performance Indicators 2003-2005

Financial Performance Indicators for Canadian Business is an authoritative reference source of key financial ratios by industry. It is based on up-to-date, reliable and comprehensive data on Canadian businesses, derived from Statistics Canada databases of financial statements.

The indicators are designed to serve as financial performance benchmarks against which individual firms and industries can be compared. It allows firms to precisely position themselves within their peer group.

FTP: /ftp/dli/fpi
WEB: http://www.statcan.ca/english/Dli/Data/Ftp/fpicb.htm

Canadian Business Patterns December 2006

The Canadian Business Patterns contains data that reflect counts of business establishments by: 9 employment size ranges, including "indeterminate" (as of December 1997); geography groupings: province/territory, census division, census subdivision, census metropolitan area and census agglomeration; and Standard Industrial Classification which classifies each establishment in Canada into a specific industry (tables at the 1, 2, 3 and 4-digit level). Since the December 1998 reference period, these data are also presented using the North American Industry Classification System (tables at the 2, 3, 4 and 6-digit level). A concordance table showing the relationships between both classification systems is included with the product.

The Canadian Business Patterns is packaged with software that allows the user the flexibility of manipulating and viewing the data on a customized basis.

FTP: /ftp/dli/cbp
WEB: http://www.statcan.ca/english/Dli/Data/Ftp/cbp.htm

Datum used for LONG and LAT in PCCF

Question

In the PCCF+ 4h program - I know the longtitude and latitude format is xx.xxxxxx and -xxx.xxxxxx, respectively, but what Datum was used for the LONG and LAT? Options would be NAD83 or NAD27?

Answer

From the reference guide for the PCCF & PCCF+ (Statistics Canada Catalogue 4 no. 92F0153GIE):

2001 Census geography features

* Within major urban areas, postal code address ranges are linked to the National Geographic Base (NGB) and wherever possible, a block-face link is identified.

* The 2001 postal code conversion process has produced some cases of reduced data quality. A part of the process generated cases where a postal code was assigned to all blocks located along a road. This occurred when a postal code could be geocoded to a road but not to a specific address range. The system then assigned the postal code to all 2001 blocks linked to the road identifier. In some cases, especially if the road was very long, this process was not appropriate and has resulted in poorer data quality. 4,522 postal codes in the PCCF were corrected where postal codes were related to ‘Main’ postal delivery installations. The records related to these postal codes were re-geocoded so that they are linked to the correct 2001 Census geography. Another group of records (associated with 40 postal codes) with incorrect census subdivision linkages in the province of Québec were also re-geocoded and corrected in the PCCF.

* A geographic unit, the block, has been added to the standard hierarchy.

* A statistical area classification code (SAC) has been added to the census subdivision.

* All the spatial information is now based on the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD83).

Statistics on Businesses Contributing Money to Sporting Events

Question

A prof is looking for information on the amount of money spent by Canadian businesses to support sporting events in Canada. He's just at the starting point for his research so he's mainly wondering what's available, but would ideally like some combination of the following variables over the past ten years:

type of business
size of business
type of sporting event/sport
level of activity (e.g. local, national)
location of event
amount of money contributed

Any suggestions? I'm really not very familiar with most of the business surveys. I've looked a little bit at Quarterly Survey of Financial Statistics for Enterprises and Financial and Taxation Statistics for Enterprises but haven't seen a category for charitable donations. I found reference to a survey done by the group Imagine Canada called Business Contributions to Canadian Communities, which is more qualitative than quantitative. I'm not sure where else to go on this
one.

Answer

Statistics Canada collects some information on charitable donations, but only at the individual level - not for businesses.

I am sure the information is collected under business expenditures, but it would appear under a very wide umbrella probably intuitively called "other expenses".

Either way, Statistics Canada is not your best source for this information.

SLID 2003

Question

With regard to the SLIDs 2003 persons file, what does code 10 mean for the variable 'reawpt1' (reason for part-time work)? According to the variable description, no such value should exist, but there are in fact quite a few observations with that value.

Answer

The code is defined in the data dictionary :
http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/75F0026XIE/75F0026XIE2005001.htm

http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/75F0026XIE/2005001/t05430.htm#reawpt1

Status of Continuing Education Students under DLI

Question

A student at one of the local community colleges (not a DLI member institution) would like to know if she can use DLI data - namely DA-level census statistics from the 2001 census, for a project if she registers for a Continuing Education course.

For the time that she is a continuing education student, it is my understanding that she would be considered a student in good standing of this institution, yes? The data would be used for course work (although not necessarily for a course taught at this university), and no outside funding is involved.

Answer

This was considered and approved.

Road Motor Vehicle Survey

Question

I have a student who would like to acquire the Road Motor Vehicle Survey - Fuel

Status: Active
Frequency: Monthly
Record number: 2746

This survey collects data on the sales of gasoline, diesel fuels and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for which road taxes were paid.

Answer

The results of this survey are reported in CanSim table 405-002 (Road Moter Vehicle Fuel Sales - Annual) and table 405-003 (Road Motor Vehicle Fuel Sales -Monthly)

Available from CHASS or E-stat.

DSP & Switching from CODOC to LC

Question

This question is with regard to the increasing trend in the integration of government documents into a library's main collection.

One concern that the Depository Services Program (DSP) has concerning this change in the management of government documents collections is that the change may result in a shift of responsibility for the collection from a dedicated government documents librarian to a number of subject specialist librarians who may or may not be fully aware of the responsibilities that a Full Depository library has for the material received from the Depository Services Program. There are at least two areas of concern.

One is the requirement to catalogue all material received from the DSP. In some libraries, this requirement may be at odds with cataloguing policies and procedures for general collections with the result that publications judged to be ephemera such as brochures and pamphlets, for example, may not be catalogued at all. This inevitably diminishes public access and long term preservation to and for these publications which together are the primary intent of the partnership between the DSP and Full Depository Libraries (FDL). While I have been told that some Technical Services policies do not consider brochures and pamphlets worthy of being catalogued or even retained, in our view, these types of publications often contain important information for the public in a condensed form and as I have had occasion to observe, libraries that retain collections of these types of publications often have thereby, a very useful capsule history of government programs, services or activities for subject area treated by them. In any case, under the existing agreement with the DSP, FDL's are required to retain these publications and catalogue them (although "catalogue" is not the word used in the guideline).

A second concern is that with responsibility for DSP material distributed to any number of authorities within the library, instead of centralized under the authority of a government documents specialist, DSP Retention Guidelines may not be adhered to. Essentially, FDL's are required to retain all DSP material received unless an item is replaced by a newer edition or an alternate format.

My question to FDL's that have embarked on the integration of their government documents collections would be: "With DSP publications integrated into general collections, how do your bibliographic control systems ensure that DSP material will be catalogued and not be de-accessioned in a manner that would violate the terms and conditions entered into with the DSP"?

Responses

Our intention, if we go ahead with the integration, is to continue to have dedicated government publications librarians. We will have to give up a measure of control, for example, in cataloguing where we will no longer directly supervise the work. However, we do catalogue all materials received, including pamphlets - any plan we come with would have to include these - and that won't change. Our collection as a whole isn't weeded though some material may be sent to offsite storage.

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In response to your question, we do indicate in our catalogue records that an item was received via the DSP. As well, we use a stamp labelled "DSP" on the items, whether they are paper, microform, diskette, etc. to indicate that the item came to us via the DSP. The stamp usually appears on the outside of the item. We decided to do this so that if there were ever any weeding projects done by the subject librarians that they would know to leave the DSP items alone. I would then need to be consulted on whether or not an item could be removed and, of course, would use the DSP retention guidelines to make any decisions. If I recall correctly, we have not weeded any DSP items from the collection unless they have been replaced by another format, eg. microform. Even then, we tend to keep everything.

We still have a librarian responsible for Government Publications (myself) and I also have overall responsibility for the depository collection despite the integration of the collection and the mainstreaming of the technical processes, like acquisitions and cataloguing. Pamphlets and brochures are catalogued, classified and shelved.

******************
A liaison librarian will continue to be responsible for Canadian government documents and this includes sorting the material for the LC or CODOC collection [only monographs will go into our LC collection]. Pamphlets and brochures are still coded as they do not meet the guidelines for circulation from the LC collection.

The library also continues to have a full time government documents library assistant responsible for receiving government publications, checkin for serials/series and ordering of additional copies.

All government publications have a fixed field assignment and with the introduction of the library's new Endeca catalogue, a search, limited to government publications will provide both the CODOC and Library of Congress items.

A major special project this summer is to integrate the historical government publications and the main CODOC collection into one
sequence. Government publications is a valuable high use collection and the library's goal is to ensure ease of access.

Switching from CODOC to LC

Question

For institutions that originally used CODOC, but have switched to LC or Dewey, did you freeze the CODOC collection and switch to LC/Dewey only for incoming materials, or did you do some kind of reclassification project? If the latter, how big was the collection and how long did it take you?

I do know of some specific examples, but would like to know of more.

Responses

McMaster University Library recently switched from CODOC to LC. There is still a "core" CODOC collection. Links with government publications information follow:

Main bibliographic services page -
http://library.mcmaster.ca/cat-coll/catacq.htm

The background report will be found at -
http://library.mcmaster.ca/cat-coll/govpubreport.pdf

and, our core collection list -
http://library.mcmaster.ca/cat-coll/gpintegration.htm

***************
In 1993, we made a decision to integrate our government publications collection in with the rest of materials received by the library. We had been coding our documents using a modified version of CODOC and we had been coding them for a separate catalogue which no longer exists. One of the reasons for integrating and for choosing to LC classify and catalogue our government publications was that it was becoming increasingly difficult for people to identify what was and what wasn't a government publication. With the privatization of some government bodies and the constant author name changes, we decided that it would be best to treat these materials the same way that we do others, ie., classify them by subject and provide full catalogue descriptions with LC subject headings. The only exception was Statistics Canada publications which we thought were suited to CODOC (we imbed the Statistics Canada catalogue number into the CODOC number that we use).

We began by classifying and cataloguing new monographs and new serials. We have done some reclassification of older materials that are in the CODOC collection. The "ideal" would be to have all of these materials reclassified, however, it is a very time
consuming project. So, even 13 years after the decision was made to integrate, we still have quite a few of our older government publications, both monographs and serials, in a separately housed, coded collection in our library. We no longer have a separate
catalogue of government publications, ie., everything is listed in our library catalogue (we use the Sirsi system).

In addition to integrating the collection, we also "mainstreamed" many of the processes for government publications. The former Government Publications Unit which did the acquisitions and coding of materials was disbanded and staff were integrated into our
Acquisitions Unit.

I know that there are both pros and cons to integration. It is difficult for those who prefer to have government publications in one area so that they can be browsed easily. But, with constant government author changes, this wasn't possible anyway.

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University of Western Ontario, Western Libraries, is in the final stages of a complete conversion to LC of a CODOC collection at The D.B.Weldon Library. The collection size is apx.120,000 items now, although it was much larger at the outset.

When we began the project in 2003, we knew from the catalogue that we had 62,500 monographs and 11,900 serial records, but we did not know how many items that represented. That made it difficult to estimate processing costs, even with accurate time studies. We planned to re-class the print collection only, and leave microfiche and microfilm in CODOC.

We started the project by limiting the scope of the collection to reduce the size before re-classification. For one year we transferred material to low use storage or the rare book collection, without changing the CODOC. If something was suitable for the general circulating collection, it was re-classed to LC and transferred to the stacks. Librarians selected material for transfer, and 4 casual assistants (students) working under the supervision of a Library Assistant Holdings Specialist, processed the location changes in a workroom in The D.B.Weldon Library. ARCC, our low use collection storage facility and rare book collection, is attached to this library. That was a big advantage for the project.

While the collection size was being pared down, cataloguers in Library Technical Services worked on creating a scheme, an LC Expansion for Canadian Government Publications. Under the direction of a cataloguer, two students applied the new LC Expansion tables to review files of the Canadian material, placing the new LC call numbers in the 095 field.

Re-labelling CODOC to LC began on site in January 2004 with a crew of 3 students and the Holdings Specialist. Beginning with Canada, at CA1, and continuing in CODOC sequence, the crew found the new LC call number in the 095 field. The students created new labels, applied, taped, and shifted the material to the new LC sequence. Within 24 hours, the Holdings Specialist would flip the 095 and the 099 fields in each bibliographic record, and the new call number would appear in the catalogue.

The conversion of Canadian documents took about 2 years to complete. For the UK, UN, US and other material we used existing LC call numbers when possible. The new LC arrangement of the collection is interesting and successful. Canadian and international statistics are grouped together for easy access.

***************
My sense is that the push to convert from CODOC to LC is driven far more by “Technical Services” than by “Public Services” motives. This is not surprising given the trend to shrink Tech Services in recent years – and CODOC specialists have been a prime target for cutting. But, the move away from CODOC has profound public service implications. I have yet to encounter a Government Documents specialist who felt the public is better served by a ‘merged’ collection.

The merged collections I have seen just don’t make sense. I have seen, for example, historical Canadian Sessional Papers sitting right next to Presidential Papers of the United States! While my goal is not to defend CODOC as the perfect system, there IS some logic in its jurisdictional approach – certainly from a ‘gov docs’ reference perspective. In my experience (20 years and counting), researchers want information by topic, yes – but when it comes to government information, they want it at a specific jurisdictional level. CODOC supports this approach.

The concerns raised by the DSP’s Gay Lepkey (potential problems with cataloguing and retention of DSP material in an integrated collection) are in my view just a symptom of the larger problem he hints at – the loss of “dedicated government documents librarian[s]” in academic libraries. It seems to me that the ‘dumbing down’ of our collections (by converting them to LC) has gone hand-in-hand with the devaluation of government information specialists and specialized reference services. And to make matters worse, losing consolidated government documents collections makes growing the next generation of gov docs specialists that much more difficult.

At Queen’s, we are fortunate to have government documents ‘partnered’ with maps, air photos, and our data service, under one administrative unit: Maps, Data, & Government Information Centre (MADGIC). There are several MADGIC units in academic libraries across the country, most with dedicated specialists. In my view, the synergies realized by this grouping of resources and expertise vastly improve public service.

I can’t change the fact that many Academic Libraries are moving down the LC path when it comes to government documents. I can, however, make a plea for the continued hiring and mentoring of dedicated government documents specialists in academic libraries. If you don't use it, you lose it.

***************
I suggest that there is a middle way on this question:

First, certain core government publications need to be kept together in order to be used effectively. These include parliamentary
records, annual reports, estimates, public accounts, sessional papers, statutes and regulations, census and most other Statistics Canada publications.

Most of these are serials, but monographic materials might form part of this core.

If they are kept together, there is also the chance that government information expertise can be developed and maintained.

On the other hand, monographs may in many cases be more accessible through LC classification. This appeared to be the case in my working situation, where there were duplicate monographs in the government publications section and in the main collections.
These included anthropological papers, geological surveys, environmental reports, etc. By and large, those copies in the main
stacks were more heavily used, though it may have been due to generally superior cataloguing, including LC subject headings,
and not just LC classification.

Not to be forgotten are the many government documents that are too fragile to survive in the main stacks. These might survive
quite nicely in a government publications department, where pamphlet boxes are standard equipment. Given LC classification,
the choices are shelving in the main stacks, along with regular monographs and serials (and where long term preservation is
out of the question), or vertical files. These fragile materials include not only leaflets of minor or transitory value, but in
some cases important policy documents, speeches, etc.

***************

Business Data Link

Question

On the Stats Can homepage, there used to be a link to a nifty webpage called "Business Data". This page is now at: http://commerce.statcan.ca/english/commerce
but there's no way I can find it via the homepage. Could this be rectified?

Answer

This portal is no longer supported by Statistics Canada and has not been updated in ages (as you can see, the population counts are from April 2006).

Although it was a very handy tool, it will not reappear in the web site redesign.