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Managing the census data base: data description, acquisition, and manipulation

Published: 07 June 1976 Publication History

Abstract

The U.S. Bureau of the Census collects and maintains a broad base of socio-economic and demographic data on population and housing in the United States. Summarizations and statistical information from this data base are made available to the public in printed reports. In addition, portions of the data are made available in machine-readable form, and thus are appropriate input for further research studies.
For most potential users, however, many obstacles exist in making use of the machine-readable Census data. These obstacles may be classified into three areas: the identification and selection of relevant data items from the available data to support a given research objective, the acquisition of accurate and complete data, and the physical storage and processing of such a large data base.
This paper discusses each of these problem areas and identifies the factors involved. Illustrations of possible solutions are presented, based on the author's experience with the Census data base at the University of Pennsylvania. Guidelines for dealing with such problems are provided for other prospective users. Finally, some general recommendations are made for avoiding or reducing these types of problems in future Census data products.

References

[1]
CENSAC Users Guide, NCSS Form 954, National CSS, Inc., 300 Westport Avenue, Norwalk, Conn. 06851, January 1973.
[2]
CENSTAT Information Manual, Pub. No. D0001902501, CDC Data Services, December 1970.
[3]
1970 Census Data Finder, Clearinghouse and Laboratory for Census Data, Suite 900, 1601 North Kent Street, Rosslyn, Va. 22209.
[4]
Data User News, Subscriber Services Section (publications), Bureau of the Census, Washington, D.C. 20233.
[5]
Kreutzer, P. J., Data Compression in Large Business-oriented Files, Navy Fleet Material Support Office, AD-734394, October 5, 1971, NTIS, Springfield, Va. 22151.
[6]
National Data Use and Access Laboratories (DUALabs), 1601 North Kent Street, Rosslyn, Va. 22209.
[7]
National Planning Data Corporation, 20 Terrace Hill, Ithaca, New York 14850.
[8]
UNI-COLL Bulletin, "Census Information System," UNI-COLL Corporation, University City Science Center, Philadelphia, Pa., Summer 1973.
[9]
U.S. Bureau of Census, 1970 Census User's Guide---Part I, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1970a.
[10]
U.S. Bureau of Census, 1970 Census User's Guide---Part II, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1970b.
[11]
U.S. Bureau of Census, Public Use Samples of Basic Records from the 1970 Census: Description and Technical Documentation, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1972.
[12]
Weldon, Jay-Louise, Data Storage Decisions for Large Data Bases, Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, August 1975a.
[13]
Weldon, Jay-Louise, "Implementation Strategies for the Census Data Base" (abstract), Proceedings of the International Conference on Very Large Data Bases, September 1975b.

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cover image ACM Other conferences
AFIPS '76: Proceedings of the June 7-10, 1976, national computer conference and exposition
June 1976
1125 pages
ISBN:9781450379175
DOI:10.1145/1499799
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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  • AFIPS: American Federation of Information Processing Societies

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 07 June 1976

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